Heather Demetrios's Blog, page 10

He Said, She Said

This past weekend I traveled to LA for YALLWEST and He Said, She Said was my first panel. I love talking about multiple POVs because it’s a question every author must ask themself when they start a new book. It’s up there with what tense you write in and whether the POV is in first, second, close third, or omniscient. When you begin a book, you have to throw stuff on the wall to see what sticks. With some stories, it’s immediately obvious, but with others it might not be. So here are my thoughts on multiple POV’s for those of you considering it.

Many of my books have multiple point of views because I felt that, for those particular stories, they opened up the world and added more tension, while also giving the reader more insight into what’s happening than the protagonist herself. It’s exciting for the reader to know something the protagonist doesn’t. It ramps up the tension, creates cosmic inevitability, and adds a layer of suspense, all of which is exciting for a reader. If you only have one POV that’s totally fine, but it’s a more limited focus. When I’ve done books with one POV it’s because I want the reader to only experience the world as my protagonist does so that the reader is a voyeur, on the journey with the protagonist every step of the way. I did this in my first novel Something Real, because I wanted the reader to feel how claustrophobic the protagonist’s…

The Struggle Is Real

This was a great YallWest panel where we got into the nitty gritty about books that feature tough stuff for the characters and how that impacts both the reader and writer. We talked a lot about vulnerability, how it’s essential for authors to have it because this is where the good stuff lies. This brought to mind one of my novels that’s coming out next year, Bad Romance, because it was so closely linked to experiences I had in my own adolescence: an abusive boyfriend, financial woes, a family breaking apart.

We talked about how our books make us—and our readers—cry. I remembered how I was writing the death of a character I loved. It was three in the morning and I’m crying and then the theme song for Schindler’s List comes on my playlist and that is about the time I lost it. When you’re writing about tough stuff—death, abuse, depression and the like—you have to be willing to bring your vulnerability to the table.

For me, the most important thing about weaving serious issues into your novel is to be specific. Specificity is what will make those issues authentic for your character and it’s what will create an emotional impact for the reader. You might ask yourself how the death of your character and those who grieve him or her is particular to the characters and the world you’ve created. How would your protagonist cry? Because she’s going to cry in a way that…

Water Is There Somewhere

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The Grief-Armies

I’ve had different reactions to finishing a book I’ve written. Sometimes it’s crying. Other times it’s celebratory and involves Prosecco. And sometimes, like this last one, it’s sad. I just turned in my revision of Freedom’s Slave, the text-align:…

The Blood Passage Playlist

Below is the soundtrack for Blood Passage. These were the songs that I listened to as I wrote the book. To find out more about why I chose some of my favorites from the list, check out my guest post with Falling For YA.

Why A Book 2 Needs To Be Badass

I love series—especially trilogies. There is nothing more satisfying to me than living with characters I love in a world that I’m dying to be in over the span of several books. They tend to be the books I remember best because I necessarily have to devote more time to them. Most of my favorite characters are in series in part because I get to spend hours by their side. Can you imagine there being just one Harry Potter or Throne of Glass? One His Dark Materials, one Alanna? Hell no. Though sometimes crazy-making, it’s a delicious sort of torture when I have to wait for the next book. We’ll call it literary foreplay. By the time I get that book—whether I had to wait a year or a day—I am so ready, so hot and bothered for that story to continue.

All that being said, when an author decides to write a story in series and then falls down on the job I am NOT OKAY WITH THAT. Author and reader are entering into a contract with one another when embarking on a novel, or novels. It’s built on trust: I, author, will not waste precious hours of your life with a sub-par book; you, reader, will pick up my book, trusting I’ve upheld my end of the bargain. I get seriously pissed off when a series doesn’t get better as it goes along. And I get really annoyed…

Research In Morocco For Blood Passage

My story is about jinn (genies, Djinn) and Morocco has a lot of jinn lore. It seemed like the perfect place to set my book. This was confirmed when my driver to the Sahara, Moustafa, told me personal stories of jinn sightings. What can I say? It’s a magical country. There was no way I could have done this authentically by simply reading and doing Internet research. When you travel to a new country, it gets in your bones. My favorite scenes of the book are set in places that were magical to me: the Sahara, riads (Moroccan guesthouses), the souks. I have a lot of favorite scenes that take place in a cave, too. For that, I travelled…

Exquisite Captive Paperback Giveaway!

To celebreate the paperback edition of Exquisite Captive, which comes out on February 2nd, I've decided to host a giveaway. Ten readers will win a signed copy! I will announce winners on the 2nd. All you have to do is enter below. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Perspective

For the past couple of years I’ve stopped making New Year’s resolutions. By March they’re forgotten anyway and then I feel like a total failure. I also tended to be one of those people that wrote a long list of impossible things. I was setting myself up for failure. Plus, it was hard to remember. Now, instead of resolutions I choose one word to be my guide for the whole year. The word represents something I want to cultivate more of in my life, something I desperately need. For 2015 the word was JOY. For 2016, my word is PERSPECTIVE.

I settled on this word because of a horrible nightmare I had the other night. In this nightmare, I was in an African village that was being attacked by warlords. You know: the scary guys that ride around in Jeeps with child soldiers and big guns and shiny sunglasses and machetes. The coked up ones. This is probably my greatest fear. That and being captured by ISIS. Oh, and being buried alive. That thought scares the shit out of me. But back to my nightmare. It was So. Real. And it kept repeating itself. I’d start to wake up and it would loop so that once again I’m hiding under a table with this girl from my MFA program who does aid work (of course she’s there with me) and they arrive and they see us and…I wake up.

I lay in bed for a good long while in the middle of the night, heart beating fast. I was so goddamn grateful that I wasn’t…

Director's Cut

(from pxtercapaldi@tumblr.com)

Every year I watch Love, Actually at Christmas time. It’s hands down my favorite movie and I look forward to watching it every year. By now I can quote most of it and even though I know what’s going to happen, the heartbreaks get me every time, as do all the sweet moments. I cry during all the airport scenes including the opening credits. I’m pretty sure it’s got the funniest opening scene of any film I’ve watched (If you really love Christmas come on and let it snow.—ha!). Some people might find the film too precious, but I think this film is the equivalent of a family’s words in Game of Thrones for us diehard romantics. Instead of Winter is coming we just point to Hugh Grant getting down as the prime minister or Emma Roberts crying to Joni Mitchell.

If you haven’t seen the film, it’s episodic, with a huge cast and different stories that come together in unexpected ways. It involves a lot of editing and skipping around—one minute you’re in the dodgy part of London following a man in love with one of his employees, the next you’re watching a different man on a…