M.D. Kenning's Blog, page 4

Interview with Robert Eaton writer of “The Hero Always Wins”

Today I will be posting and interview with Rober Eaton, the author of “The Hero Always Wins.”  He is another member of the Genre Underground, and his first novel is both dark fantasy and comedic at the same time, and a very enthralling read.

Here is the interview:

 MD: The world seems to be an interesting mix of seemingly familiar concepts (heroes, fire wielding bad guys, orders of knights with magic swords, etc) with original spins on them (exactly how the heroes work and the warlocks, etc).  Are there any specific inspirations for this world and how it works, or was all of it an original world from the ground up designed to feel like a familiar type of tale?

Robert: As you’ve pointed out, the world of The Hero Always Wins is inspired by a number of traditional fantasy elements.  I love Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and the like, and wanted my book to have some of that feel.  However, I think my world has a lot of original elements as well.

One aspect that is unique to the world of The Hero Always Wins is that the scale is much smaller than many other fantasy worlds.  I didn’t want armies of millions where a single hero could hardly have an impact without god-like powers.  Instead, I created world that could be travelled by horse in a matter of a few weeks, and large cities have populations in the thousands.  A few hundred warriors constitute a sizeable army, and individuals can really turn the tide in battle.

MD: Tell us more about how the heroes (and the Leorht) work, and what makes them different from typical tales.  Any world information you want to give, either that can be gleaned from the books, or that you had thought of but not necessarily spelled out in the book.

Robert: I love tales of magic, but one thing that always bothers me in fantasy is when a hero has too much power.  So often I see fantasy series go off the rails because the hero is nearly invincible and only complicated loopholes can challenge him.  To this end, I wanted to create a magic system that gave my heroes power, but kept them vulnerable as well.

Generally, my heroes have a very well defined set of abilities.  Those that follow Leorht, for example, have the ability to wield properties of light.  The move with a heightened sense of speed, and can summon limited amounts of electricity to aid them in battle.  Beyond that, they are as human as any other warrior on the battlefield.

MD:  Without going into spoilers, I will say I enjoy how as the book goes on, the reader cannot necessarily know where things are going with characters, even though at the beginning it seems to be very typical of its genre.  This makes me wonder, did you know an overall outline before you wrote, including the twists, or did the twists come to you as you wrote.  What is your process in general when writing in terms of you the author knowing the plot?

Robert: Most if not all of my plot twists are planned well in advance.  I always develop an outline before I start the actual writing.  At the core of my outline are a series of plot events which form the critical path from beginning to end.  I also throw in specific lines of dialogue, bits of imagery, side plots, and other “cool” ideas I have that I want to work in.  From there, I start writing, and ad lib the details of each chapter as I go.  Sometimes the journey leads to changes in the original outline, but generally the major plot elements go unchanged.

MD:    Your structure is a more typical chapter based structure, but I have noticed many modern idioms and phrases in the chapter titles.  Was this a conscious decision to add some “tongue in cheek” elements to the story or a more unconsciously motivated decision?

Robert: Modern idioms and tongue in cheek phrases are central to my writing.  When I first started writing, I tried to mimic typical fantasy influences from mythology.  However it didn’t take me long to realize that I don’t care about mythology.  Instead, I drew on those cultural elements that are near and dear to my heart: pop culture.  So my books, though set in a “traditional” fantasy setting, are chock full of references to sports, music, and modern slang.

As for some of the “tongue in cheek” elements, I love a good pun.  Some people may find it corny, but there is a playful cleverness to puns that amuses me.  I also like to mix in elements of satire, which I think goes hand-in-hand with the cheekiness.

Basically, I live in 21st century America.  Just because my head is in the fantasy world doesn’t mean my feet don’t touch the ground around me!

MD:    Tell us more what got you into writing this book.  Are there any specific trials or stories in your own life that occurred from writing this?

Robert: Honestly, this book is influenced by video games as much as anything else.  I grew up on Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy, and the Legend of Zelda.  I love heroes like Kratos from God of War, and villains like Arthas from Warcraft.  I started writing partially because video game stories got in my head and I couldn’t get them out.  Does that mean my books would make a good game?  I don’t know, but I’d like to think so.

MD:    What is your background/training as a writer, or any prior experiences in writing?

Robert: I don’t really have any formal training in writing.  I do have two Ivy League degrees, and took a few writing classes along the way, but never majored in English, Creative Writing, or anything like that.  I owe most of my writing ability to genetics and my high school English teachers.  I always did very well in writing throughout school, and I had a few teachers along the way who really helped me understand how to channel my ability into a decent story.

MD:     What would you say you focus on as a writer; themes, plot, or characterization? If it’s a combination of these, let us know which you feel you focus on the most, and why?

Robert: Definitely characterization.  I love my characters, and have a vision for them from cradle to grave.  I don’t generally have characters who managed to live boring lives as simple farmers or blacksmiths until the age of eighteen.  Instead, my characters have colorful backgrounds chock full of adventures that happened before my book begins.  My writing, however, concentrates on what I consider to be the main adventure of a character’s life, the adventure that leads them to ultimate glory or ultimate demise.

My characters have real emotions and real motivations.  They are driven by the same things that drive us all: love, greed, fear, and duty.  In the end, every one of them is doing what they think is right, either for their nation, their loved ones, or themselves.

MD:    What makes you the rock and roll star of fantasy writing?

Robert: Rock and roll has always been central to my life.  I grew up in the late eighties and early nineties, watching glam rock and metal morph into grunge and rock-rap.  I always identified with the wild, lustful, and dark undertones in rock music, and I carry those undertones into my writing.  In my mind, every one of my characters looks like someone you could find at a music festival.  Some are on stage, some are carrying equipment, some head-banging in the audience, and some are selling weed behind the porta-potties.  They’re all there though.

MD:   Finally is there anything you would like to tell us about your upcoming book?

Robert: The last question is actually a good segue.  My upcoming book, the sequel to The Hero Always Wins, takes the rock and roll from backstage to center stage.  Music is part of the plot, and one of the settings is a fantasy version of the Sunset Strip circa the mid-80s.

All your favorite characters are back, with the action picking up right where the first book left off.  The mood is darker, the battles bloodier, and the plot twists crazier.  It’s taken a little longer than I’d hoped, but the book is finally coming out this fall, and I couldn’t be more excited.  If you loved The Hero Always Wins, stay tuned; the sequel is going to rock your world!

This concludes the Interview

As for my regular readers it looks like “Mandatory Paradise” is winning completely in the poll for the name for the new standalone Fantasy Thriller Epic Novel!  With the name decided we will be moving soon onto the next stages of getting that novel out.

Everyone Desperately needs a Dan

So after I published the The Fall of House Nemeni as I was awaiting feedback one of the readers kept sending me notes.  They included what he liked, but also included the points that were confusing, or he felt defused tension to early, etc.  Ie they were an honest critique not of the copy/line editing variety but of a how the readers see and comprehend the story.

When I knew I would make a revision of the story to help pare down the typos/grammar issues I realized I had an opportunity to make the story tighter too.  He was the first one that made me realize Chapter 3 had to go, and other various small issues were cleared up or made more hidden depending upon the topic.  If you bought the book after June 30th, this is the version of the book you have, and I am still working with amazon to make the newer revision available for readers who bought the earlier edition of the book.  You can definitely thank Dan G. for the tighter version of the book (this is not the Dan thanked in the book), without whom those changes would not have happened.

I think every self-published writer needs a Dan.  I know this is one function of  editors, but most self-published authors are lucky to have grammar nazi friends copy/line edit for them.  Most of the time if it’s a friend or relative they are not going to tell you, “Seriously, get rid of that entire chapter” or “WTF happened here?”  As an author, if they did and they were a non-writing friend you would be likely to ignore that anyway, since it’s your book.  If you did take the advice you would probably take it in the form that changes your book the least.  It’s important to have that person who is not only going to tell it like they see it, but then back it up with a logical reason or why they think it makes things better and not just a vague “I don’t like it.”

At the same time, you do not have to follow everything they say either.  They are not writing the book, they are not the “editor” who decides if it gets published.  There will be times that your style, and how you choose to frame the narrative will be different than their preferences.  In that case as a self-published writer you need to go with your vision of what the book needs to be over any one specific reader.  At the same time it’s great to have that one constant voice questioning what you are doing so you can make it stronger.

I am around the 30% mark or so on the second Allmother’s Fire book, and just handed it to Dan before the copy and line editing are started on that. It would be such a waste for those poor editors to make it be grammatically correct and then I re-write the whole chapter.  As for the name of that second book of the Allmother’s Fire, I’m almost definite now it will be Rise From the Sun Below.  More than a few people who did not answer the poll told me that was their preference (of course I prefer if people record things in the polls it makes it easier for me : ) )

Speaking of book names, time for today’s Poll!

This is meant to be the final naming Poll for the new epic novel, formerly known as Nimoa.  I have pared it down to two choices, one the top poll pick from the large list, and the other a really great sounding suggestion given.

The New Epic Novel Fantasy Thriller should be called:

1)The Labyrinth Conspiracy

2)Mandatory Paradise

Take Our Poll

Upcoming on the blog this month you should be seeing an interview with one of the other Genre Underground writers, some world information about the new Epic, and the typical posts about writing and e-publishing.

For today’s world info we will stick with the Allmother’s Fire series.

An interesting tid bit is although their main religion has a God like analogue with the Allmother, there is definitely no specific Satan like analogue, even though much of this church is similar to the Catholic church.  There are said to be a race of creature’s called the “Firesouls” however that come up from the Sun Below.  They are said to be able to either burn people or even take over their body and souls if they are not blessed by the Allmother.

The best way to be free of the influence of the Firesouls so to go to the Questionary weekly.  This means not only sing the songs and the formal worship, but then later be with a Priestess inside a Questionary and admit your sins before the Allmother.  You are then anointed with the sacred oil and drinking her holy drink made of specific herbs that only the Priestess’ know of, and then the Firesouls will not be able to reach into your heart and soul, at least for a little while.

It is grumbled by some that this means the Church has an inordinate amount of power, since it knows everyone secrets. The Church  always responds it will never use that power lightly, and only cares about saving the souls of everyone on all the Islands.

Characters and Authors can be Lying Liars

It’s a truth often forgot by readers: Characters and Authors can and do lie.  That Ancient prophecy might not only be false, even worse it could be a trap sent to manipulate future populations to do certain actions.  Just because the head villain says he’s your father doesn’t mean he’s not just saying that so he can cut off your other hand.  The Old wise Man leading the hero down the path to his true destiny might actually be stealing everything the hero owns why he is away from his house.

Readers have this tendency to see the Author themselves and certain devices (wise old women and hermits, prophecies and last will and testaments, deathbed revelations, etc) as immutable truth.  Part of this is from the oldest myths encouraging this, sometimes it’s latter day laziness on modern authors, or maybe it’s just the feel that an author is revealing a world and story to you, so you can’t imagine why they would not tell the truth.

This of course means that some of the greatest emotional shocks can be from when one of these trusted sources lies to you.  If done too much the readers won’t trust anything and they can be numbed by further twists. It can be as bad as M. Night Shamalyan (don’t make me spell this right) movies got, or poorly written soap operas.  If used sparingly though you can hook them into the narrative and then turn the tables on them when unexpected.  It is definitely something I utilize in my writing (including the section I am currently working on in my novel).  The current novel I am reading also utilizes it.  As a person who loves twists I had guessed the big one but the way it was revealed showed further twists ripple out of the main one I was not expecting, and caused the same sort of reaction I like to give to my readers!

Personally I think the best way to serve a lie to the readers is with the sandwich method.  Have two things they expect to be true or from true sources turn out that way, and then then in the middle of that have a lie.  It makes it much harder to expect, and means thata  later truth they will think is a lie won’t be.  In other words, this allows you to shock them with the truth!

The poll is being narrowed down from the last post, and I may keep it open for a few more days. I will then narrow down the Epic Novel book title with one more poll where each voter cna only vote once.  Either way I should know the title by the end of next week, and then I will be searching for a new cover artist.  This next epic novel (not the new novel in the trilogy being written) has a different feel, so I wanted to brand it with a different artist.

Today’s poll is about naming, though.  The second novel in the Allmother’s Fire trilogy is what I am currently writing, and I have narrowed it down to two names.  If you have read a decent amount of the book the reasons for these possibilities will be obvious, with the more you have read giving more nuance to both possibilities.  I have run both of these names through my mind for a while, and I at least wanted to see what others are thinking.

The next novel in the Allmother’s Fire Trilogy should be:

1)The Rise of the Allmother’s Grace

2)Rise from the Sun Below

Take Our Poll

Both also “fit” along with the current title of “The Fall of House Nemeni.”

World Info for Allmother’s Fire

One of the types of Noble Houses not currently shown are the one’s whose Domain is over Motion.  There are multiple Houses that have these abilities, but each manifest in different ways.  Some are direct, and can move themselves or vehicles or weapons faster or slower depending on their specialty.  Some are more indirect, and can use control over motion to increase or decrease the temperature.  These users do not know why it works this way, but the results are obviously true.

The other Houses not detailed yet are a lot of the minor guilds.  Some of these like the Dyemaker’s guild have as much temporal power as the lower noble houses, but the span of their abilities are so narrow (being able to change the color of objects in the case of the mentioned guild) they do not command as much respect.  It seems like there are an infinite amount of families that can do some minor thing to loophole the Grand Laws of the Universe. It is thought by some that even the lowest peasant might find that his family had some unknown ability if only they had the leisure to practice and figure out just what they were.

Dramatic Irony vs Suspense

Dramatic Irony vs Suspense

In any novel with secrets when they are finally brought to light there are two main ways to reveal them.  You can reveal them to your readers, and not the characters.  The other way is that the reader does not know something until a character does.  Novels that focus on suspense tend to use this later method.  They leave clues and hints but in the end nothing is made definite until revealed to the character.

Other novels and my personal preference as a reader and a writer is to reveal at least some of the secrets but either none or most of the characters do not know the truth.  While this does lessen the suspense (and is probably not the preferred method for a mystery) it does allow later events to be seen in a different light than the characters are seeing things.

If Jen is bemoaning that she never got to raise children to John, who is secretly her child and you know this, it makes the whole speech different.  If John is aware of this, and responds back but does not reveal the secret, each words he says may have two meanings.  One of them is the way she is perceiving things and the other comes from his additional knowledge of the truth.  Personally, I love that method much more.

This of course does not have to be used in just soap opera settings, and can help add danger to a scene if you know that person’s partner is really the killer, or they just handed their house key to the person who wants to take them down.  Dramatic Irony can get you yelling at the characters in a book like almost nothing else, and I like things that add that level of caring about what happens.

The other reason I prefer Dramatic Irony is that if in most of the novel a lot of the big questions remain secrets to the reader, they may become lost, confused, or bored.  Dramatic Irony should give enough information to hook interest, but can often leave out key pieces of informaiton that makes the reader want to know more.  Being clued into a secret also helps the reader feel smarter than the characters without actually dumbing down the characters.  You might know what will happen if they stab someone with the magic dagger and they are not wearing a blue tunic, but you can’t fault the protagonist for not knowing since they were not in the mind of the antagonist two scenes ago.

Some people prefer the real impact of a secret that is carried for a long period of time and then is suddenly shown to characters and the readers at the same time, and prefer the shock value that has.  I honestly believe that in sci fi and fantasy novels (and to a lesser degree thrillers but not mysteries) it is good to have an honest combination of both, to give short term and long term ‘hooks’ to your readers.

As for other book related things I wanted to briefly talk about tags.  Amazon uses tags to help people find books that appropriately fit categories.  One of the issues with Indie books is with less original exposure, people at large are not sure if a book tag fits an appropriate book.  Here is a great thread on the Genre Underground Goodreads group page http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/947198-a-sporting-game-of-tagging?type=topic#comment_53802172 to show some Indie authors some love.  They have links to their books and you can click on the suggested tags, and say that you agree with the tags. This has nothing to do with endorsement of a book, and is not a review or liking it, just letting people know what type of book it is so the right audience can find it.

My Poll today is NOT connected to what I mainly talked about, instead it is another one about the epic novel.  The results of the last poll have Conspiracy, Labyrinth. Paradise, and Island as showing as the top four options and I had one person tell me they had an issue clicking on Labyrinth, so I am giving them another vote for it.

Here are some titles I am thinking of, you can vote for more than one.  If you have other ideas, please put something in the comments.  Like last time for my First novel, I am not guaranteeing to take the vote as the new name for the novel, but this helps me gauge what my readers like.  Please vote as to which titles makes you most want to either pick it up or at least read the description.  Oh and the Paradise Conspiracy is not a choice because I already looked it up and it’s taken   Depending upon if there are a few I like and others like too, I may do a final poll on this later.

Poll

1)Labyrinthine Conspiracy

2)The Labyrinth Conspiracy

3)Conspiracy of Mandatory Paradise

4)Island of the Labyrinth

5)Paradise by Conspiracy

6)Island Paradise of Conspiracy

7)Massacre in Paradise

8)Isolation Conspiracy

Take Our Poll

As for other news:

Updates – The epic novel is 80% through it’s current editor (the book was partially edited beforehand but that was a while ago, and the focus was not on line editing in the past like it is now).  Soon it will be passed to another editor to copy edit.  I expect this novel to have at least two new full passes of editing, and possibly three, with a particular focus on copy/line editing since it had more thorough overall story editing in the past.

The sequel to Fall of House Nemeni is about 25% through the rough draft, ie the bulk of the writing.

As for a world tid bit:

Long ago the House Nemeni made clockwork guards amongst their other clockwork marvels. These guards were amazing as they could react as if alive, and were unbribeable and never slept.  Occasionally though, something would happen and they would slaughter people without warning.  Eventually the Church issued an edict that the brass guards (also known as golems) were being possessed by Firesouls and their use was forbidden.  By the time this happened House Nemeni had transitioned to a banking house, and this edict did not harm them.

Now golems are the things of children’s tales and warnings.  If you do not listen to your parents a firesoul may make a golem appear in your room, and crush you in your sleep, or so it is said.  Only scholars with large libraries seem to remember how widespread and how powerful they truly once were.

Killing Your Characters Reasonably

I saw the new Spiderman movie over the weekend. (Incredibly Mild Spoiler alert.  If you know anything about Spiderman in any way shape or form and have ever read a comic or seen a movie, this is not a spoiler alert at all.)  This time when Uncle Ben dies it felt a lot more realistic the way the plot unfolded and I’ll admit it, I was a bit misty eyed when it happened.  It was not just that he died, or that I felt more for the character in this incarnation (which I did) it was that it felt like something that could naturally occur in the plot.  Now I know it was also a needed thing to happen for the plot and the characters to be motivated and act as they should for the rest of the story, but it was all together believable and that helped.

Anyone writing in certain genre’s (horror, fantasy, thrillers, sci fi) is going to probably have some characters die.  Maybe even well liked or known ones.  The main two reasons a writer does it is because A) it would reasonably happen in the story.  A chain of events cause it so that a specific person would just have to perish. You could always find a way out for a character but it may not be believable or reasonable that they could and so their time is up. B)The other main reason is that it helps the story.  Maybe someone needs motivation to know that with great power comes great responsibility, or someone has to die so that there is risk in the conflict.  Possibly they have to die for plot reasons, so that someone investigates a murder or someone needs to take their place.

I have concluded that unless there is a serial killer involved it’s best if you can do both.  If you can trace either the events, or the motivations of the killer and go well yeah or course this person would die, it’s a lot better than a “freak accident.”  I know some people think things like freak accidents add “Realism” to a book.  In my mind however it can make a reader feel cheated, and can come out deux ex machina.  I honestly think the killing of Uncle Ben works better than Batman’s parents dying. I understand the lack of reason is part of the batman mythos, that the senselessness of it all in violent Gotham city is part of what shapes him, but I can’t say I have ever shed a tear for Martha and Thomas Wayne.  Uncle Ben however, especially in the new movie, yes, I did.

Also if there is no long term affect on characters or plot it also feels like something done out of malevolence.  I have had a high body count in some of what I have written, so I know that seems odd to come from me, but I do like to think every named character that dies has some sort of large effect on one of those two things.

Obviously another side of this is writing characters with enough complexity that they are missed.  All of these thoughts are in my mind of course, because I have been busy this week writing a new chapter.  I might even be about to kill your favorite character in the next day or two, who knows.  Oh who am I kidding, of course I am!

For today’s Poll I am going to ask a question having to do with my Epic Novel’s new name.  Originally it was going to be called “Nimoa” which is the island it all takes place on.  I had rethought the intelligence on that move, and when I gave a poll on naming possibilities that was the idea no one liked.  So it seems like a smart move to keep going with a new title.  “Themes” of the book was the winner, but plot related was the runner up.  This is a poll that you can choose more than one choice.  Which of the following words do you like, and might draw attention to you in a title.  Each word here is evocative of theme or plot.  If you have synonym ideas from words on this list, you can leave them in the comments.

Poll: Which words would you want in the title

1)Labyrinth

2)Labyrinthine

3)Paradise

4)Nimoa

5)Island

6)Isolation

7)Conspiracy

8)Bureaucracy

9)Massacre

10)Survival

Take Our Poll

Don’t worry, I am not just going to string together like the top three words or anything. This just helps give me a snapshot of what types of words ring with readers more.  Next poll will be several differentactual title possibilities based off of what is chosen.

World Info:

In the various Islands in the Allmother’s Fire Series there are two main drinking types of establishments.  There are Public drinking houses which can be known as “Pubs” and occasionally “Ale Bar’s.”  These serve beer and by most laws have to have a place that people can sleep it off if too drunk, so they double as cheap hotels.  Other activities in these establishments also make it lucrative for owners to rent rooms, often by the hour.  By their very nature they are often seedier with the exception of a well frequented pub by locals if they self-police enough to keep out ‘riff raff.’

The other type of drinking establishment is a Tavern, and they only serve wine there.  Like it’s source material (Renaissance Italy) wine is held in high regard, and wealthier members of guilds and even some times royal families will patronize these places.  In many cases you have to either get an invitation to enter, or drop a lot of gold coin.  This makes Taverns a much better source of information on the location of valuables as many merchants speak with a freer tongue for they feel safe there.  All a would be Pirate has to do is act convincingly, forge papers and drop lots of gold to get in. In other words this tactic is rarely successful but when it is, it’s always lucrative.

More Like Tornado of Change (and talking heads)

I’m going to have to declare the Winds of Change Promotion a success, at least so far.  A E Marling spent a lot of time sitting at number One in the Kindle Free Epic fantasy list, M Todd Gallowglas sat around #2  or #3 for Dark Fantasy (and also #3 and #4 for another book of his and around that on the Fantasy Series list), Christopher Kellen was around #7 and #8 for Epic Fantasy, and I was up to #14 for Epic Fantasy!  Dave Meek with Stalker Squadron was at #30 for Action Adventure and # 5 for Sci-fi High Tech and we all went below the #1000 mark in the general free kindle store!  Needless to say good stuff.

So what to expect in the future because of this?  More promotions of course, but more general interactivity as well.  I have positive feedback oorm the Interview with M Todd Gallowglas, so I can tell you that won’t be the last.  The books are all still 99 cents today and tomorrow, so if you did not pick any up, there is the time to complete your collection! Hre is the link to my page http://www.amazon.com/Fall-House-Nemeni-Allmothers-ebook/dp/B00847364S/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1341334069&sr=1-1&keywords=nemeni and look in the product description for the otehr great titles!

As for other Tornados of change between this promotion and work being swamped I have not been able to move much on the book recently.  I hope to rectify that this week and get caught up on the new book.  It’s hard learning to balance actually getting the book done, all the rest of what I need to do in my normal life, and all the long term important things for securing my career with writing, but it is looking up.

Also I am mapping out my long term plan better, to keep something always available on Kindle Direct.  I may get the next novel done 3 months after I get my epic published, but I frankly might not so I have back up plans.  A novella may be released after the epic, and like the epic it is already mainly written but just needs to go through editors.  However since the novella is a smaller and cheaper work, it seems weird to me to do a complex cover like the current one I have.

That leads to today’s blog poll.

If I release a novella what should I do cover wise:

1)Keep it the same grade of quality or more so than the current one and what you plan for the epic.

2)It’s a novella.  It should still be professional, but it can be simple and not require tons of graphics or art.

3)It’s just a novella.  Slap a name on it, and don’t bother wasting any money at all on the cover.

Take Our Poll

As for info on the sequel:

I’m writing a flashback right now to when a massive amount of power was announced it would be transferred. This is a pretty big scene and most of what takes place in book one occurs because of this scene.  Obviously that makes it important, but right now it’s coming out as just talking heads.  I have written about before that I like to just throw in a cliffhanger or action if I feel like the pace is slowing, but that would be incongruous with what I am currently writing.

Another scene I did a few weeks ago that was similar I could use dramatic irony and inter character tension to punch it up, but that would not fit here either.  Anyone got any advice on how to punch up necessary talking head scenes?  At this point all I can think of is cutting down the dialogue to the most efficient dialogue possible even when out of character to shorten the scene as much as possible, but that does not totally fit.  Without physical action, character tension, or dramatic irony I lose alot of my tools to keep things flowing well.

Another idea I had was instead of doing what feels more like natural back and forth dialogue between the main character and who he is imparting information to I could just have him do a quick info dump, not give people a chance to react, and change scene.  Then I could show the necessary reactions of other characters in other scenes that have other events occur, and let things move on.  Any thoughts?

Interview with M. Todd Gallowglas

Today’s blog will be a little different than normal.  I have an interview with one of the other Genre Underground authors, M. Todd Galloglas (here is a link to the first book in his Tears of Rage story http://www.amazon.com/First-Chosen-Tears-Series-ebook/dp/B0055I14BG/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1341078615&sr=1-1&keywords=m+todd+gallowglas which will be on sale during the Winds of Change promotion!) Let me know how you feel on interviews, and if you would like more from the other talented authors of the Genre Underground.

And now … the interview!

1)Tell us more of your background, how you started in Indie Publishing. Was there any specific events or occurrences that pushed you towards Indie Publishing?

I actually resisted the indie book thing for a couple of years. I was in a writers group, and one of the guys in the group mentioned this new online publishing thing. The dream of a “real” publishing deal had been beaten into my head by all the traditionalists, especially as I regularly attended conventions and conferences in my quest for that publication deal. This may have been in 2007/2008 – maybe earlier.

Flash forward a couple of years. I have a degree in English with a focus in Creative Writing. The plan was for me to go into teaching English while waiting for that elusive “book deal.” That plan wasn’t working out so well. The teaching thing wasn’t panning out in the current economy, and I was back to storytelling at Renaissance Faires to help pay the bills. Within a few days of each other, my wife and several friends send me links to a couple articles about some person names Amanda Hawking and how many ebooks she was selling.

One of my performer buddies had this story he’d written that he shared with me about zombies invading a Renaissance Faire. The story was pretty entertaining and funny, but the writing had some issues. We talked about fixing it up, putting it on Amazon, promoting it at our shows, and sit back and watch what happened. We sold over a hundred copies that first month. Not a lot at $.99 a copy, especially splitting it, but enough for each of us to eat a decent dinner together at a fair after the royalty check came in from Amazon.

I was hooked. I had a bunch of work sitting in my documents folder from school and before. I had a medium where I could get it out to people. With my storytelling show, I had a great platform to launch a book career. And now here I am a year later, international bestseller, forming a group of like-minded indie genre writers, and living the dream.

2) In your current series Tears of Rage you have a very dynamic pantheon. This is not a normal good vs. evil pantheon, but there are many different personalities and alliances. Tell us more about your pantheon, both influences and a few details of the key players for our readers.

I’m not a big fan of good vs. evil. Most religions aren’t like that. People aren’t like that. I had so many false starts and hiccups and such when I started Tears of Rage, that I’m not really sure where I decided that the gods would be getting involved, but once I made that choice, I realized they all had to be something more than good vs evil. If we look back on our own mythology, we see stuff like this all the time. Hera was a nasty bitch, but her husband was a cheating bastard, so it’s kind of understandable. I’d also been reading a bunch of fantasy where the bad gods were the BAD god. EVIIIIIL for the sake of being EVIIIIIIL. *yawn* How terribly uninteresting.

Anyway, I thought, what if I make my protagonists the side that’s stuck between Light and Dark. Grandfather Shadow was born. I came up with a sort of creation myth for him (Which you can read a part of that in the prologue to Once We Were Like Wolves). And the pantheon grew pretty quickly after that.

As for divine movers and shakers in the books, right now, we’ve got Grandfather Shadow who is just been freed from a thousand year prison; Yrgaeshkil, goddess of lies and mother of Daemyns, she’s also married to Old Uncle Night, the god of death; and Kahddria, the goddess of Winds.  Others pop up now and then, but these are the deities that pop up on stage most frequently so far. Four of the five greater gods are still imprisoned, but don’t count on them staying that way for long.

3) Your book flow is rather unique, having various sections with its own chapters in it rather than just a standard three act separation or all the chapters in a row.  Tell us more about how you got the idea for this, and why you prefer this setup for this series?

I’m not the only writer who does this. Steven King uses this technique in some of his books, most notably The Dark Tower series. I like the form. I’m not going to use it for everything I write, but I really enjoy it for the Tears of Rage books. I don’t use it for Halloween Jack and the Devil’s Gate or my upcoming books Spellpunk and Team Red Hand series. But I’m probably going to use something like this for Dead Weight. Wow, did I digress.

I’ve been sitting here thinking of how I got the idea for this and why I prefer it, and really the only thing I can come up with is: I thought it was a cool idea so I tried it. I knew I was taking a risk, especially with the opening sections of First Chosen. That’s not the way most people are used to having stories unfold. I think if I hadn’t read Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson, I wouldn’t have had the guts to do this. In the original draft of Julianna’s storyline, the book opens with Grandfather Shadow being freed from his prison and the events that led up to that I planned to seed in throughout the narrative of the series. It was a strong opening, but didn’t sit right with me. I felt the reader actually needed to go through those events that take place over the course of twenty-one years; however, giving the reader those years in the tradition setup, prologue, chapter one, chapter two, etc… wasn’t going to work. Luckily, it seems to have paid off. I’d urge other writers caution before trying something this experimental. Make sure you understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, and be ready for it to fail miserably.

4)Are there any particular real world inspirations for the cultures in the book?  I can detect some Italian influence on some of the mortal names but I was curious if there were other inspirations?

I draw a lot from real-world cultures, and not just Italian. I’ve draw inspiration from all over the world.

The four great Houses of the Kingdom are based very loosely on cultures from Earth, and the political structure is based sort of on the Chinese Game Mah Jongg. I took the importance of numbers from Asian cultures and assigned each of the deities a sacred number, and used that to influence the great House that worshiped that particular god or goddess.

As for names… One of the greatest investments I’ve ever made as a writer was in purchasing a massive baby name book. It has over 30,000 names, categorized by culture. Any time I need a name, I go to that book and flip through it. Can’t recommend enough for other writers get something like that.

5)The language and naming of the gods, what inspired them?

Well, Grandfather Shadow’s language was first. I actually invented it before I started working on Tears of Rage. I’m a huge role-playing game nut. I used to go to this big live action role playing event (no, not the one Jim Butcher does) a couple times a year. In this, every wizard, priest, cleric, magic user, etc… had to have a spell book, with all their spells written in it. If another player got their hands on the spell book, they could steal all of your spells…IF they could read the book. I created Galad’laman, the language of Grandfather Shadow, as a way to keep my spells safe. It was a mix of Gaelic, Finnish, and Tolkienian elvish, though 99% of the elvish influence has been weeded out. I stopped going to those LARP events almost 15 years ago, but I had my notes and such on the language, so when I sat down to write Tears of rage and I was looking for something new and interesting to do with the magic, I opened my old spell book and notes.

Looking back, I wish I’d come up with something different. I have a plethora of gods, half a dozen of them at least have their own languages. The biggest pain in the but I have writing these books is translating the damn and bloody miracles out of English and into whatever language as character is using to speak Miracles. I am so dreading the massive battle at the end of book 4 The Fires of Night.

6)You are releasing the books in a format that seems tailored for ebooks, slightly shorter but in rapid releases. Was this because of the ebook medium, or are there other reasons for this?

I think it’s ironic that people think of my books as shorter. At one point, a novel was classified as any book over forty thousand words in length. First Chosen clocks in at just over 60,000 words, and Once We Were Like Wolves is just over 83,000. Arms of the Storm is currently 123,810. (It’ll be different once I get it back from my beta readers and editors.)  Thirty or forty years ago in publishing, these books would have been on the massive side of books, if publishable at all. Now days, even Arms of the Storm is tiny compared to what some people are publishing in fantasy.

So, that being said, you can thank three men for my publication schedule and the size of my books: Robert Jordan, George RR Martin, and Steven Erikson. These three gentlemen are likely the kings of the door-stopper fantasies (though Brandon Sanderson is catching up), and I’ve been following each ones’ huge fantasy epic since pretty much day one. I was a couple of books behind when I got to Ericson’s Gardens of the Moon, but I caught up quickly. When it came time to put out Tears of Rage, I had fourteen hundred pages of a manuscript I called Once We Were Like Wolves, the first chronicle of Tears of Rage. Quite a mouthful, even if just reading in. Oh, AND, I wasn’t even finished with that story. Which with my “I’m going to get a traditional publishing deal” mindset, I felt was okay. After all, those other three guys did it.

By the time I decided to go indie, I realized something: only one of those three guys is putting out books on a regular basis. The other two are taking years and years, sometime even a decade between when we see some of our favorite characters. As a reader, that really ticked me off. Erikson managed to put out all ten of his door stoppers in 11 years, 10 months, 14 days. That’s pretty impressive, considering half of them are over 350,000 words. And I’ve never heard anyone really complain, “When’s that next Steven Erikson book coming out?” At least not seriously. I wanted to be that kind of writer. The one problem is that I can’t do a Steven Erikson level of production, at least not yet. So, my readers get my Tears of Rage books in smaller doses, but they get them a little more regularly. For the Halloween Jack books, they have to wait for October to roll around again.

7)Tell us more about the Genre Underground, both what inspired you to start this, and where you see it heading.

Wow. That’s quite a doozie of a question. I’ll do my best to answer it.

I’ve been a member of several Indie writer groups. While they had some people writing fantasy and science fiction, no one in those organizations was really active in the fan community. I’ve been going to conventions and such since I was eighteen. I’ve grown up as a fan of genre literature. As I writer, I write the books I wish someone else would write so I could read them. With these other Indie writer promotion groups, while I learned a lot about marketing and such, I felt they really didn’t understand the community I’m trying to reach as a writer, mostly because they didn’t grow up in it the same way I did. I also felt they were a bit too much of “if you have a pulse, you should buy my book.” Growing up in the community, I understand that’s not how fantasy and science fiction really work. Not everyone is going to groove on my stuff. I’m okay with that. I’m not a big Terry Pratchett, China Miéville, or Robert Heilein fan, but tell that to anyone who is a fan of any of those three, and the reactions are usually awesome. On the other side of the coin, I’ve seen Terry Pratchett almost cause a riot one year at the World Science Fiction convention when he announced, “I don’t like Tolkien and think he’s overrated.” So, with all that experience under my belt, I’m building the Genre Underground, trying to keep the readers firmly in my head, because I’m a reader, I write for readers, and I really want to make those people who are allowing me the privilege of living my dream the focus of my movement.

As for where do I think the GU is going? We’ll see. I’m already blown away by the interest and support we’re getting. Once we’re on the other side of the Winds of Change promotion, I’ll have a sit down with the other guys I invited into the GU and see how the whole thing went over with the readers and where we all want to go from here. Sure, The Genre Underground is my brain child, but I also don’t want it to become the M Todd Gallowglas show. If it weren’t for A.E. Marling, Christopher Kellen, and R.C. Murphy, the Genre Underground might never have been anything but a dream in my mind. Then we brought Robert Eaton, M.D. Kenning, and Dave Meek into the fold, and we’re getting on toward escape velocity. More writers have expressed interest in joining up. If they bring the same initiative, drive, and dedication to our mission statement, anything is possible.

8)Are there any particular influences on your works in general?  Is it all fantasy fiction, or are there other inspirations at well?

I’ve read lots of Fantasy and a bit of Science Fiction, some Horror. Yes. All of that has influenced me and my writing to the point where my storytelling brain just requires some sense of the fantastic to work. Heck, I don’t even do Science Fiction well.

That being said: Read outside the genres.

I wouldn’t be the writer I am without having read: Hemmingway, Tim O’Brien, Flannery O’Conner, J.D. Salinger, Jeffry Eugenides, and many others. Everyone should read these writers and more. They should also read stuff they don’t think they’ll like. I learned my biggest lesson on keeping my world internally consistent from being forced to read Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” about a bajillion times while taking those few required lit classes while getting my BA in Creative Writing. The story has a huge gaping inconsistency in it. Took me only three reads to get it, and then I ripped it apart in every class I’ve ever had it in since.

I’ll leave with this challenge: Go read the story. If you read the story and catch the gaping inconsistency in the world Walker tries to create but fails, email me at mgallowglas@gmail.com, and I’ll give you a gift copy of Arms of the Storm book 3 in Tears of Rage before it hits Amazon.

Thanks for having me as a guest. And thanks to everyone who stopped by and who supports all the Genre Underground writers.

Winds of Change!

No I am not referring to the “classic” song by the Scorpions.

Jul y 1st- July 4th a very awesome promotion will take place.  A group of Indie Writers (yup I am one of them) called the Genre Underground have banded together to give quality Indie options of Fantasy, Horror, and Sci fi novels to consumers and during that time many will have free or 99 cent books!

http://www.facebook.com/#!/TheGenreUnderground this is the group’s facebook page, and they have a more extensive following on goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/topic/list_group/70802-the-genre-underground that I can highly reccommend.  Soon you will be seeing interviews from members of this group here.

The Fall of House Nemeni will be free two of those days, and it will be a NEW revised version with additional line editing from a few people and other changes already talked about in this blog.  Newer books of mine I will have more beta readers/line editors but since that was my first book it definitely benefits from the original help.  Not to mention, I am a big fan of using different medium different ways, and this is one of the great things about e-publishing, issuing corrections digitally.

As for The Winds of Change Event July 1st to 4th here are some highlights for you of things you can expect (and remember these books will be free part of the time and heavily discounted when not:

BROOD OF BONES by AE Marling. High fantasy adventure of dreams and mysteries.

Brood of Bones

Knight Terrors (3 Strange Knights)

Legacy (The Arbiter Codex)

FIRST CHOSEN and ONCE WE WERE LIKE WOLVES by M. Todd Gallowglas. Dark epic fantasy of scheming gods and men, in the first two volumes of TEARS OF RAGE.

First Chosen (Tears of Rage Series #1)

The link for mine is still http://www.amazon.com/Fall-House-Nemeni-Allmothers-ebook/dp/B00847364S

This is a great time to stock up on some fiction, depending upon which genres you like!

One of the things I am really enjoying that I did not know before getting my book out was how nice a lot of the Indie writing sf/fantasy community is.  I have been given a lot of advice by twitter and email, and it has definitely helped chart the course of what I have done, and a lot of the decent exposure my books has been given has been from that.

Considering that many creative outlets in an independent scene treat sales like a zero sum game (if someone buys from Author X they are somehow taking away from my sales) I feel pretty fortunate that it is not that cased with what I have witnessed so far.  Authors are also willing to give not just advice, but shout outs for other books and initiatives, and this camaraderie is a lot of what I look forward to seeing whenever I am on twitter now.

As for updates:

The sequel to Fall of House Nemeni is at about the 18% mark for the first draft.

The too-be-renamed epic Novel (for now we will codename it Nimoa because that used to be its name) is about 2/3rds the way through the first new revision, but this one is going through a lot of hands.  A few blogs from now I will put up more polls having to do with its new name.

Poll:

Just curious in general, what is your favorite genre? I am putting up side genre’s only not, things like general lit, or things that fit in other categories ( for example, YA tends to be some other genre).

1)Fantasy

2)Sci Fi

3)Horror

4)Thrillers

5)Mysteries

Take Our Poll

World Tidbit:

Not a lot of time/space for a tidbit about my world this time so I will keep it brief.  The Nemeni House was not always a banker house,  Certain of it’s clockwork gadgets (safes for storing money, gear trackers for finding stolen things, armed clockwork guards) were used by other banking Houses frequently but could only be operated by the Nemeni.  The Nemeni eventually realized it would be smarter to cut out the middle man, and become bankers themselves.  They stole many clients from their former employers, including the House Tanello most of all.  House Tanello never forgave them and it became a feud raging up until the beginning of the first book.

Spinning Plates

It feels like both as a writer, and in my actual life the key things I am trying to do is like the vaudeville act where someone would spin a bunch of plates on long poles and try to keep spinning new ones without letting the old ones stop.  In its own right its harder than juggling, because you have to do all these things simultaneously.

Although at its heart The Fall of House Nemeni is a personal tale of a family who’s House is destroyed and their attempt to rise up and survive against all its assembled foes it’s also a sprawling epic.  Many countries are involved, the basic myths of that universe tie into the events and characters from all over the lands get roped into the schemes of a few.  Currently I am trying NOT to add too many POV characters regularly, but certain events that are very important cannot be currently witnessed by most of the survivors of House Nemeni (once you finish the first book, you would understand why).

This has led to secondary characters taking a more important role in the next book.  On one hand as an author I love this, expanding the world and showing how more people live in it.  It also helps flesh out earlier scenes once you know more of what a secondary character is actually like after you take a peek in their head.  On the other hand the main characters people love are the ones they were really introduced to in the first book, so you can’t really ignore them or give them a short shrift either.  My current way to help with this issue is to have multiple character POV’s in the same chapter.  I took care beforehand not to do that, but with the current cast it would be insane to give them all separate POV’s without ballooning the size of the book or turning each chapter into a 3 page mini chapter.

I do a very small amount of that at the end of the first book (tying things in more either geographically or by theme) and I like the way it turned out.  This is not my poll, but I am curious if anyone else has opinions if it’s better to have only one POV per chapter but tons of tiny little chapters, or group them by geography or theme so they are of similar size as the current book.

In real life, I feel like I am doing the spinning plate thing too.  I am preparing for a cross country move before the year is done, wrapping up all the things we want to do before the move, writing the novel, overseeing the editing/release of an older novel, planning outside things having to do with the writing career (twitter, a podcast I was asked to be in, a writer’s event coming up etc) and then trying to write a few short stories for other publications to get my name out to other audiences.  Kind of connected to all this will be my next blog post this week.  For a teaser of what that is about go to http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/70802-genre-underground and join this group on goodreads.

Needless to say I feel some of those spinning plates are going to crash down soon and since some of those simply can’t be put on the back burner some of the newer things will have to be cut or everything will suffer.  Originally I was planning on doing a few short stories for online magazines, as it felt like a good way to reach more people, and would not be too much of an investment of my time since most of the stories would only be about the size of two of my chapters.

In reality, I am finding the fact that my mind has to switch gears to the different worlds of the short stories causes them to take much longer, and I feel like they are draining away time and mental resources from the main story.  At the same time, they do tend to give a decent amount of exposure for a minimal amount of effort overall.

Today’s Poll

What should I cut so all the Plates do not go crashing down:

1)The short stories.  Save the time and effort for the current novel and rewrites needed from editing.

2)Cut down on twitter/blogs/interviews and other publicity stuff.  Just write the novel and short stories.

3)Cut Both of the above.  You are early in your career and do not need to worry about publicity or short stories at all.

Take Our Poll

World Info:

In the Allmother’s church there are no sacred written texts.  In modern times and with the modern focus on literature some people are writing them down, but the Church insists they can only be sung or chanted in worship services. This has led to most Priestesses being decently talented signers, except for a few poor churches who cannot be picky.

It also has led to some divisions, as certain islands are definite that some passages are worded different than others, for that is how they have always been taught.  The Allmother’s Daughter and representative in this universe is always the one who gets to interpret what is the “accurate” songs of the day, and this has led to some bitter rivalries amongst island to see who gets to have the official version of the Allmother’s Songs spread to everyone.

Cliffhangers and keeping the Author Entertained!

Some writers have a 500 point outline written before starting a novel.  I tried that once, and I got so bored I could not finish writing the first chapter.  Although I normally have a hazy outline (and sometimes quite a lot if not all of the end hashed out) I purposely let a lot of things remain up in the air as to how they happen.  Sure I might know Character A needs to sometime get to point B, but the journey is often open ended.  Sometimes if the character is fleshed out I may even alter things because Character A would NEVER go to point B, and then small parts of the whole plot move.  The most important part for me is to find the balance between having some of the plot written in stone so I can foreshadow and make logical character growths towards a specific point, and keeping things fresh so I want to write too.

I think this is also why I prefer to write in either pulp inspired or outright swashbuckling genres, the idea of the unexpected being key in both.  There was a particular chapter that was bogging me down in the currently published book.  It had very needed exposition, and a lot of things that moved the plot along and rewarded earlier development in the characters.  The problem was, it was boring to write.  If it’s boring to write, I am betting its boring to read. I went back over the chapter 4 times, and kept re writing it. The chapter was no longer boring to read, but I had run out of the “steam” I had earlier for the chapter. I wanted to move on to the next one, but it would not have made any sense to stop where I was. So what did I do?  I had the character thrown out of a castle.

It actually fits with the overarching plot, and the defenestration was going to happen to that character later, after trust was built.  In the end it was simply more fun to have them thrown out early, and unexpectedly.  I have gotten a lot of positive  (and a little WTF?!?! are they dead?) feedback about this scene, and it rejuvenated my want to keep writing more chapters.  I think that’s one of things a lot of writers do not talk about, the fact that as they are writing it, they are readers also.  Granted it’s different since the writer is more likely to know all of what is going on, but the author is just one more reader that does need to be entertained.

When writing this series and the other larger book I will be rereleasing soon, I felt the excitement the writers of the pulps in the early twentieth century felt and some of the early comic books, too.  Cliffhangers reminds me of the old 60’s Batman shows, that kept kids wanting to return to the “same Bat Time” and “same Bat Channel”, and it does not even have to be at the end of your book.  If you have not read the book however I do of course leave you at the end with a pretty giant doozy of a cliffhanger.

Today’s  Poll

First a little background. I am releasing a new fantasy epic.  It’s being re-edited as we speak, and it will be a big one book door stopper.  Well, electronic door stopper.  Anyway, it’s original title was the name of the island where the whole story takes place. It is certainly accurate.  However, my current book has a jargon name.  When I tell people about the book, and they seem interested they often ask for the title.  After I do I get a blank look, because it’s not the sort of thing they will remember unless they write it down, and there is no descriptiveness to it.  This has made me wonder about whether or not to keep the title name for the new book as is, or to change it.  Without going into specifics, here is the poll

What should I name the fantasy epic that is to be realeased soon?

1)Keep it the name of the island it takes place in.

2)Name it something indicative of the plot.

3)Name it something indicative of the “feel” of the book.

4)Go poetic.  Island in the Sea of Time type thing, but not that one.

Take Our Poll

As for a world tidbit, in this world the heavier and utilitarian cutlass is being used alongside the thin and more dueling oriented rapier.  Most noble Houses have the nobles themselves using rapiers (for the only time they will normally ever need to defend themselves is in a duel) and bodyguards and soldiers and pirates use cutlasses.  This is not universal, and one of the original Captain Bloodeyes was well known as using rapiers when boarding ships and then challenging the opposing captain to duels.

One shot Muskets are used in the book too, but after they are shot they are useless.  The battles in this universe tend to be up close and do not give one time to reload.  Many soldiers keep at least a pair of muskets loaded before combat for that reason.

Keep thsoe questions coming and by the next blog (or two) I should have something specific to announce having to do with some other great writers!