M.D. Kenning's Blog, page 5

Perception and Reality: POV

If four people were in a room and saw a confrontation you would probably get four different (sometimes very different) stories of what happened.  Everyone shades what happens through the way they view the world and their own thoughts and preconceptions.  Even specific words might change as people misremember what they or other people said, and body posture and intonation also take on completely different shades depending upon the viewer of a situation.

I bring this up because one of amazing things with writing is that we can show this so easily, how an event can be interrupted in different ways depending upon whose head we are in.  It’s a device used in many of my favorite books.  It ties heavily into the beginning of the Fall of House Nemeni, and used a few other places too.  I have had people write me and say, “Hey how come things looked different in this chapter and the other time it was told.” I then have them go back and look and keep in mind that it was from a different characters viewpoint, and they could see how that heavily altered the perception of an event.

One person recently asked me, “So what is the real story, what is really happening, who is right?”  As a writer, I do have a pretty good idea of what is really occurring, but I would like to think I am biased too.  I see events as how they affect the overall plot, and frankly that is not the full story either.  There are also some passages that let readers know information that is secret, and completely changes the way they read all the dialogue already said.  Personally, I enjoy those moments, when you realize everything said buy someone in the past might have been different then you thought. I talked to a reader recently who did not like those types of things revealed when seeing someone’s viewpoint.  They preferred having things revealed in actions, and viewed from the main protagonists view, than from inside other people’s heads.

Poll Question:

Do you like to have the revelation of some secrets to be from when antagonists or background characters get a POV, or do you want everything revealed in action viewed by the protagonists?

1)Revealed by Protagonist perception only

2)Some reveals by POV can be good

Take Our Poll

Miscellaneous other things:

On advice connected to a group of writers I am with, I have increased my twitter followers from about 17 to 350+ in a weekend.  We will see how this goes, but so far I have met some really interesting people.  Twitter is still not my favorite social media at all, but it is a neat way to meet a lot of people and learn just a little about them.  The chat on #steampunkchat was tons of fun too!

Someone asked that with floating islands, airships, and pirates, if that meant we would have sky mermaids.  They answered their own question when they realized that would mean harpies, who are much less cooler than mermaids.  Hmm I wonder if people really want harpies in this?

Disregarding Advice

I have for the first time decided directly to go against advice solicited here by the poll results in one case.  I have never wanted them to be binding, just a good indication of what other people were thinking, taking the pulse of my readers.  The more I look at releasing the epic novel (which I have never given a definite name to here yet, which should be a hint of what an eventual poll question will be : ) ) the more it does not make sense to  break it into separate parts.

I was originally focusing on getting it out sooner, but right now the first pass of editing is going much faster than I originally thought it would.  Also, before I was focusing on seeing if I could have new material out every 90 days or so, mainly to get the most out of  how the exclusivity deals work for amazon. Whereas I still like that idea, and I have some long term ways to help with that after the Allmother’s Fire trilogy is done, I have decided for now not to make that my focus.  At a bare minimum I want to get the epic tome out and maybe at least one other thing while I work on the trilogy, to build up a body of work as soon as possible.  Post trilogy, I have some neat ideas to keep that up, but I will make that the topic of a different blog.

Also when I look at this novel which was meant to be one self-contained fiction, it appears to me it will be very artificial if I break it into two books. It won’t follow a normal confrontation -rising action-climax-falling action style if chopped into two books, and I think it’s important in normal series for each piece to feel like its own book.  Therefore due to information I was not thinking about in the original poll, I will probably release this as just one book.

For now with so much of my book time that is not spend on the trilogy looking at revisions that are going on, I am thinking of going against normal advice for a very short period of time.  I have been told with self-publishing about 75% of your time is spend marketing your books, and I have not done so as much recently, and this reflects in sales.  However, in a just a few short weeks I am planning on having a revision of my book out.  Too me, it seems silly to put effort into getting people to buy the book before the new revision comes out, which leads me to today’s poll.

Should I stop marketing my Fall of House Nemeni book until the revision comes out in about two weeks?

1)No, it can hurt general momentum if you stop marketing.

2)Yes, focus on getting the best product into people’s hands.

Take Our Poll

My next blog may be a little later than normal as I will be busy earlier in the next week. I might still be able to put something up on time depending upon circumstances.

As for specific Nemeni world information, here is a new tidbit:

All of the Houses have tried to do to their element what Lontor and the other Wood based families have done, ie try to make it so the substance they control can float through the air.  Only Cloudwood has ever been able to do that, but there are ancient tales that Artists used to be able to do so with marble and other stones.  These tales are what inspired the floating sky Citadels, even though in current reality there is a Cloudwood structure embedded under and in layers in the marble.  Artists to this day still experiment to see fi one day they can be the artist who finally learns to make stones float.  These artist point towards the islands themselves, and say there must be some way to do it.

“Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.” ~ Oscar Wilde

The above is my favorite quote of all times.  I was thinking about Quotes, and the power they have in writing. There are people who will forgive a multitude of plot sins if they get enough quotes out of a piece.  They do not even have to be Oscar Wilde level clever, just memorable.  I have started the next book, and here are some quotes (one each) from the  first four chapters that I like, but they are not really in the vein of “clever” as much as “memorable” for me.

“When Daisy was annoyed, she hit things. When Daisy was mad, she tried to dismember people.  Daisy was furious, so it was no surprise the deck was clear of all crewmembers.”

“Long forgotten memories flooded back into her consciousness as the two women who were choking each other screamed in the exact same pitch as they fled together into oblivion.”

“It seemed strange to want to shiver when he was located in the middle of a giant ball of fire.”

“He ignored the pain in his chest as he commanded his blood to work overtime and expel the musket ball back out of his body, and at his fencing partner.”

It’s a smaller post today but I am curious how Quotes affect you with books?

How do you feel about Quotes with books:

1) That’s one of the things that make a book stand out for me, how quotable it is. Very Important.

2) I remember more cool things done more than clever phrasings. Not that Important.

3)I don’t care what is being said but more how it is said. Important only if clever

Take Our Poll

As for current books updates:

The old large novel being re-edited is about1/3 of the way through its first editing pass (but not it’s last).  I am seriously contemplating just releasing it as 1 big novel after all. This will be the first time I go against my polls, but really re looking at it, I am not sure there is a great stopping place as it really was intended to be one novel, and I don’t want any changes like that to feel really artificial and forced.

The sequel to Fall of House Nemeni is pretty much moving long at it’s projected pace, so not much to say on that front other than it is moving as it should.

As for trying to revise Nemeni in time for the July 1st promotions, I am nervous about it, but we will see.  It has been started, and minus the third chapter as per feedback.

Killing your Babies and Revision

Very minor spoilers (if you read the product description there are no spoilers involved)

Fall of House Nemeni begins with four chapters of four different view points based off a single event.  The original idea was to chronicle the cataclysmic (well at least for the House Nemeni it was) events that shape the rest of the book, and show how a different pair of eyes could tell a different story.  As I get feedback from multiple people about the beginning of the book although there are some differences of opinion, most people have responded thusly: they like Chapters 1 and 2, and most did 4.  What has become really obvious, is that most did not like Chapter 3, and it has made me think about something another author once told me.

They said, “The most important thing about being an author is being willing to kill your babies.”  I am pretty sure it was not a literal infanticide comment or just bieng willing to let characters die, but more about excising things in your book that you will want to keep because they are important to you, but the book does not really need it.  Upon re reading I can see chapters 1, 2, and 4 reveal significant new information and interesting characters that it is obvious why people like those chapters.  In my mind Chapter 3 was a needed piece of the puzzle, but further study combined with feedback makes it obvious to me that maybe three lines are really needed, the rest just completes my want of having four characters observe the same events, and is not needed.

I am going to send House Nemeni through another round of edits, even though publsihed now, as I have caught several issues not caught before original publication (then/than issues, some grammar, etc) and a couple of formatting issues that did not show in the preview mode when I published it to kindle.  I plan to do this rather soon, and want it out before the July 4th weekend if possible.  At the same time these edits will help the book, nothing major changes as to the story itself by doing them.

With that in mind, I now ask my next poll question:

When I release the revised version of the book, should I entirely cut out the current chapter three?

1)Yes, if overwhelmingly people don’t seem to like the chapter, then cut it.  Early momentum when reading is important.

2)No, the book has been released, if you kill an entire chapter in future versions of the book, that will be confusing to the people that already have it if they download the revised version later.

Specifics, like whether or not I should add the few missing pieces of information that would occur from killing that chapter into another place in the book can be decided later.

Take Our Poll

Also, is there someone who is not currently editing another book for me that thinks they could do another round of revisions in the allotted time?  If so, please let me know the more fresh eyes the better.

As for a book world tidbit:

There are flying versions of various creatures both of the mundane variety (like flying gazelles) and the less mundane (like flying Kraken) around the floating islands. In many cases they have versions that seem island bound, and than others that fly around.  In the cases gazelles the flying variety have wings, in the cases of some of the species like Kraken they do not.  There is not a lot of conjecture in this world as to why this occurs, but some philosophers think it is the same thing that allows islands to fly and never sink that allows certain species to do the same.  Every year more mundane species seemed to be spotted flying (some try to even say they have seen flying cows and pigs) in uncharted spots around the isles, but there is not definitive proof for many of the claims made.

Exposition and Lost Ponderings

One of the fun challenges with fantasy fiction is how to get all the necessary world information without turning chapters into boring walls of exposition.  This task gets even more interesting if the characters and the inhabitants of that world in large have incorrect or incomplete ideas they think of as true of their own universe.  At that point you have to find a way to relay what people think about the world, but not back yourself into a corner so that when you show more of what is going on it is obvious there is not ret conning going on.

I am writing the second book now, and certain characters are starting down a path that will reveal the truth behind things they did not even think to explore (ie this is not about the religion or prophecies) the veracity of.  I am trying to find a way to make these revelations obvious that it was the truth the whole time, but still feel natural from the events and the characters, and not make it seem that this was just a way to cover up inconsistence’s for the internal “world logic.”  I did plant plot seeds to help with this, but it is still a challenging task.

It is important to the overall plot that some of this is revealed to the characters, but I wonder how much is necessary for the characters to know, and how much the readers even want to know. Some people like to see fantasy epics as a tapestry for characters to exist on and stories to be told in, and do not care too much about underlying mechanics or how everything happens in that world.  Other people see the mechanics such as the magic systems, the creatures that live there, and unique things about the world to be just as important as the plot and characters themselves.  These readers prefer if not for everything to be spelled out at least enough information to be given that everyone can draw logical conclusions themselves as to how it all works.

Think of the end of LOST (possible mild spoilers if you have not seen it all yet).  About the half the viewers were fine with the end, and found that the characters arcs were all wrapped up in a satisfying matter, and closure was given to the characters and their drives.  Others hated it, feeling that their many questions about the world and why things happened were never answered at all.

This all leads me to a question I was pondering the other day, and my poll today:

Do you prefer the focus to be on the characters and their personal stories, or have all the questions about the world itself answered?

1)I want the focus on the characters and their stories, I don’t need the in depth details of everything about the world explained.

2)I like characters and stories, but please find a way to answer any major questions or what appear to be inconsistencies to me, or I am not going to be satisfied with an ending.

Take Our Poll

As for updates on the books themselves:

Fall of House Nemeni is basically moving at the same rate it does normally, minus special events (first few days released, promos, etc).  Although the free promo day was fantastic, I am not definite long term whether going exclusive for Amazon was the best choice but we will only know once I release it on other platforms in Late August.

The second book in that series is started, and currently going on the right pace to make the total time to create it (both editing and writing) be roughly nine months.

The release of the newly edited older work will have at least three editors.  The first editor is 20% or so through it, and when finished I will hand to the next editor after doing suggested re writes.

Also many of my ideas are generated from comments or private mail, so let me know if you have questions or anything to say.  I know several people are in the process of reading the book, so even if not finished your feedback helps (one such conversation prompted this blog)!

Expanding my Territory!

First, as a result of advice given and as backed by the poll, I will be releasing an older work.  That was originally going to be my next poll question, which of three works to release, but after looking over it and discussing it with people who have read all three, I have decided to release an epic novel I worked on about 4 years ago.  The novel holds up well (it’s actually much funnier than I remembered), but really needs editing, both the obvious like grammar, spelling, etc, and the just as needed tightening of the Third Act.  I love the rest of the novel, but the third act is a much quicker pace than the rest and it feels un-natural.  I have a lot more people volunteering to edit/beta read now, so I will take advantage of that to get that book out, with a minimal amount of my own time so I can continue with the current series.  I will of course do re writes as needed, but it’s not nearly as time consuming as creating the rough draft of the new novel.

In addition to putting up the new novel another way I am expanding is people are now just starting to borrow my book on Amazon Prime from the free lending library.  I am more than OK with this, and if you have finished the novel and want to lend it out to someone else on Amazon Prime, I am happy with this.  Due to my exclusivity with Kindle I still get recompensed and another person gets to know my book exists : )

Also, my book has shown up on Shelfari and Goodreads, and if you have it you can add it to your shelves there!  This is one of the good side effects of a massive free book sale, it has ended up on some people’s shelves, and I notice that amount increasing every day or two.  If anyone here wants to join in there, they can now that it is up! 

The final way I have expanded is with a group of authors that are writing cutting edge speculative fiction called the Genre Underground.  The twitter feed for it is https://twitter.com/#!/GenreUndergroun and there will be more in the future on that, definitely a group to keep an eye out for and some great deals in the future.  You might even see some interviews from some of those authors here later : )

Most of my future topics will deal with the current book, but occasionally there will be poll questions and other details of the much larger book that will come out from me soon.

This of course transitions smoothly into my next poll :

Should I release the older epic in two or more parts (the total is about 170,000 words, to give perspective my currently released novel is about 92,000) or as one big novel?

Pros of Releasing as one big novel: It was originally meant that way.

Con: It will take longer to be released, and it will be harder for me to know how to price.  If I price it much larger than the current one then it may not sell, but if I price it very close or the same people may feel ripped off for such little price difference if they bought my current novel.

Pros of Releasing in Parts: I can release the first part pretty soon, and it will be easy to price it.

Con: It was not originally meant that way, so I may have to do a little work on it to find a natural stopping point, and maybe juggle a few chapters or scenes so that it works as two separate books (I will probably have to add a prologue to the second half to catch new readers up too).

Take Our Poll

As always let me know if you have any questions about the book, your questions are definitely what I base this blog on.

I Sold Out and it Felt Great.

So I followed both the poll’s advice, and the advice of some friends on Saturday, and became exclusive for the next 90 days with amazon.  As part of that deal, I can have my book free for a few days.  I get no compensation during that time, but it’s a good way to actually get my books into people’s hands.  I decided to have that first free day be Memorial Day, and this was obviously the right decision, since by the end of last night I was number 12 on the Epic fantasy chart for Kindle!  300 more people have a copy of this book in their hands now, so I am definitely feeling like everyone gave me the right advice, thank you!  Plus, it did not hurt that this was on reddit

As originally a nook owner (I now have both kindle and nook apps on my tablet and read both) this felt a little strange, but the results are worth it.  Taking this advice and seeing it work out so well has me now mulling over other advice from people doing the indie scene.  One of the similar pieces I have of advice is to have multiple works out as soon as possible. It seems ok if a couple of the other works are novellas instead of full novels, but having a volume of work seems to help for multiple reasons.  One seems to be your shorter works can be cheaper or free constantly to get your name out, and the other is you are higher on searches if you have more than one work out.

I can see the wisdom in this, and I do have two short stories I am writing in attempts for anthologies, but that really does not match the advice given here. The problem is if I write a novella or shorter work then it delays my work on the second book of the current series.  I do not mean George RR Martin type delays (it only takes me about half a year to do a novel at the latest, once combined with editing it would be done much sooner than a year) but I only have a finite amount of writing time.

This of course, leads me to today’s poll:

What should I do about trying to get a novella or two up as soon as possible:

1)With the help of your larger editor army, get one of your previous works edited and out. This may mean breaking it down into 2 books (one of the finished ones is huge, but needs editing badly).  This way your actual writing time investment stays on the current book, and the majority of the effort is on your editors (since you really only have to put in the re writes, or maybe make it break into separate books better).

2)It’s your current works that people are actually looking at. Take you time to write a novella set either in the same world (maybe a different island) or at least the general clockpunk genre since feedback shows that is one of your selling points.

3)Just focus on getting the next novel in your current series out.  It may take longer before you have more than one work published, but when you start a series that needs to be your only focus until it is done.

Take Our Poll

And for feedback:  I have gotten some feedback and critiques which I think will help strengthen my next work.  One of them is the flashbacks confused some people.  In the first book, I noted the timing (if it was a flashback and when, or “now” if the chapter after a flashback) in the chapter header.  The next book I will take that information and take it out of the chapter title and bolded right before the first paragraph.  Thank you, your feedback helps me a lot!

Also, I have no reviews up now, but if any reader of this does put one up, besides being honest about the rating,  please if we have a connection (friend, relative, editor of book,  etc) make sure to disclose it.  On amazon, that is the proper etiquette so it does not look like you are attempting a “shill” review.

Select Markets and Noble Abilities

There is a promotional move that I am considering but I am kind of torn.  Kindle has a Select program with its independent authors, where you can enroll in that program and get more exposure, and also recieve some compensation when someone checks out your book in the Kindle library from being a Prime member.  This gives your book a much wider exposure which is great for an independent author, as letting the masses know your book even exists is one of the toughest things at the beginning.

However, like all things in life, there is a catch.  If you do this, your book has to be exclusive to Kindle electronically for at least 90 days.  Today I recieved my formatted manuscript for my publisher to Nook, iBookstore, Sony, etc today or this weekend.  The way things are, I would be allowed waiting the 90- days to have it up in that bookstore, but I have several readers who already told me they only use nook (as I used to) and so they will have to wait three more months from when I start until they can read my book.

At this point my question is twofold.  First, will more new people be exposed being the Select program to make up for the loss on all other platforms?  Second, even if this is true (which may be possible) is this something I want to do?  I know if I was still tied only to the nook platform that would annoy me, and maybe even make me care less about the book when it did come out on my platform.

This all ties into today’s poll, a rather simple but important one:

Should I join the Select program and be 90 days exclusive to Kindle?:

1)Yes, the benefits outweigh the negatives.

2)No, the negatives outweigh the benefits.

Pretty simple question, but more important than most of these polls in my mind, since I will make my decision over the weekend.

Take Our Poll

I finally had my first clarification question about a character and their abilities in Private Mail, and in case others are wondering I wanted to add a caveat that might help in reading.  I want to do it in a way without giving spoilers to those very early in the book so here it is – remember everyone has two parents, and many of them are from different noble houses so there are multiple types of abilities each person might have access too.

Also along those lines, people have asked about noble blood and powers, here are a few (but there are others, and Artists and small guilds have their own abilities too)

1)House Nemeni — power over metals that manifests in making clockwork gadgets that can break the Grand Laws of the Universe, or more mundane clockwork gadgets but do not need to be wound if used by a member of Hosue Nemeni.  They can “call” out to the gadget and it works.

2)House Tanello – power over water, this shows mainly in manipulating and detectingwater over distances, they are experimenting with steam engines

3)Various families of Lontor — amongst other smaller islands, they have power over Wood, and make the much needed cloudwood  that all airships use, and can sculpt it with their bare hands

4)Artists – control and molding of earth and marble and stone

Keep sending questions, and I may have some interesting news next week about another project I am … well we will just wait and see.

Of Limbo and Second Novels

We are now at an interesting stage.  The book is out on Kindle (which you probably already know but here is the link just in case http://www.amazon.com/Fall-House-Nemeni-Allmothers-ebook/dp/B00847364S/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1337631356&sr=1-1 ) but not in other formats yet.  The other e-book stores will get their copies from my publisher, and the formatting of my manuscript for them is still occurring and won’t be done till later this week.  After that it still needs to be electronically distributed to the other stores, which could take one to two weeks.  The publisher is how I will have free copies to give to reviewers in most cases, so I have a book out, but with no reviews.  That makes me effectively in limbo, even though it’s published on one platform, which is kind of weird.

Also, this is not part two of the Artist related blog as my artist was not able to do the interview this weekend, so that portion will have to wait until her schedule clears  That means a new topic is needed for this blog, and it is going to tie into today’s poll (which due to the results of the last poll will happen very frequently, but like my last blog announcing the book being out it will not be every post).  Today’s poll is about an interesting topic for me at least, the next book.

I do have some chapter fragments for it already, but I have not written the first chapter on that and I have just started doing so recently.  The first chapters of books in a series are special creatures for they simultaneously need to give new readers at least enough ground level information that they can comprehend the book even without as much insight as readers of the first book, yet they need to catch the interest of continuing readers too.

As is known for anyone who has started reading the books (I assume no one has finished it yet) in the series there a bunch of flashbacks for one of the characters.   My current plan is to use one of those flashbacks to introduce half the remaining cast and the background on the world and the massacre that drives the book, and the next chapter to introduce the current status quo and the rest of the survivors of the massacre.  I’m taking advice on whether this is seen as good, or if I should come up with a new framing device (such as a minor secondary character having a journal that recounts things or a historian writing of them after the fact).  The other idea would be to focus on actions occurring and let new readers be a little lost but have them catch up through little bits of exposition grafted in a more natural feel into the normal narrative.  Here’s a chance to help with the next book!

A)Use the flashback for chapter 1 and then continue from where you left on in the last book for chapter 2 to re-introduce the world and its concepts, and then move the plot along.

B)Make up a whole new device (journal, historian, etc) for chapter tone to catch new readers up

C)Hit the ground running and start things right after how they ended up in book one.  Your readers will catch up as long as you start putting little bits of information about the world in there.

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As you read the book, let me know if you have any feedback.  It’s nerve wracking to see it sell a little, but not hear back from anyone that had not read it before : )

And the book is Available!

I was not expecting this post so soon.  You can buy the book on Amazon right now!

Click here to go see it!

Please share this post, as an independent author that is the best way to get the work out about this book, by word of mouth!  The more twitter feeds, facebook statuses, etc. reproduce this, the more people will know it exists. Thank you everyone for all your help!  I look forward to discussing the contents ofthe book more, now that people can actually read it