Konn Lavery's Blog: Posts from konnlavery.com, page 51

Writing a Style Guide

If you are writing a novel with a lot of unique creatures, worlds, languages or technologies it is highly important to keep track of the lore. Fans love reading into backstory so you want to be sure you are consistent with the history. You can keep track of it through a method known as a style guide. It is a document that you use to keep notes and categorize related items. It is exceptionally helpful when working with fantasy or science fiction novels when you have a lot of chronological information that you need to keep consistent throughout the story.

Following a previous post about keeping yourself organized with writing, a style guide is a powerful tool to keep organized for your whole novel.

Do I need a style guide?

You do need one if you are:

Writing a story with a lot of lore.
Writing a series.
Writing a story with a lot of new worldly item such as a fantasy story or a science fiction novel, or even a thriller where you have intertwining plots.

What do I put in a style guide?

You put EVERYTHING in. Think of the style guide as an umbrella term for all of your notes with writing your novel. With a style sheet, you can keep your character sheets in it, key events or species to name a few.

Style Guide Sample:

Below is a set of categories that you can use as a template for sections to keep track of your book.

Characters – This section you can use to write down character physical traits, personality traits and a couple of sentences of their history and their motive.
Factions – Factions is a broad term for groups, religions, gangs, countries, etc. Basically any group of people with a common goal. Write about a paragraph’s worth of information about who they are, how they came about and what their goals are. Keep it short so it is easy to reference down the road.
Locations – Countries, islands, cities, building or milestones. Big or small, write down important locations in the novel that are referenced within the book. Jot down important aspects of each location, any historical aspects or key points that are relevant to the novel’s characters.
Items and or Technology – Use this section to keep track of strange items such as currency, technological advancements that are used throughout the story. Some other examples are food, vehicles, weapons, spells, books, etc.
Races and or Creatures – Are there different races or intellectual species in your book? Write them down here, much like with character sheets, keep track of their traits.
Times – Have important historical eras in your novel? Some backstory that you need to recall in a later chapter? Use this to note relative eras and what they relate to in the story.
Other – This section can be sued for any other aspect in the story.

When do I write in my style guide?

Write in it as soon as you write a new item, creature or character that you did not have in the book before. It is essentially a living document that you are continually writing in to organize your lore.

Summary

A style guide is a huge advantage if you are looking for a different way to keep track of your novel. It can also serve as the basis as an encyclopedia if you choose to go this route. The more backstory you have written down, the easier it will be to reference in the future if you plan to write a sequel or another novel related to the same universe.

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Quiet, But Still Alive

I’m still alive.

The past couple of months have been rather quiet with the exception of announcing the 2nd edition of Mental Damnation: Reality. This has been consuming a lot of my time since I want to get it to you, the reader, as soon as possible. The editor and I have been working around the clock to finalize edits – it is very exciting!

Welcome to February’s Unprocessed Thoughts

Despite being only about 3 months into the New Year, this has been a crazy start with planning upcoming conventions and book launches. Yes, that is right, book launches. The goal is to release two books this year which is quite ambitious. If you’ve been following the news about Mental Damnation: Reality, you can probably guess what the next release is going to be.

With these releases, I can promise you’ll be hearing from me a lot this year.

So if you don’t follow me online, be sure to add me either on social media or sign up to the newsletter.

First Convention – NSF Con

The first event I am at this year is the NSF Con in Calgary at the end of March. In preparation for this I have made a new order of Seed Me books with some updated formatting from the original print run.

New order of #seedMe #novels just arrived. #books #smellGood. #authorLife #horror #read #bookstagram #yeg #yegWrites #catFeet

A post shared by Konn Lavery (@_konnartist) on Feb 27, 2017 at 2:39pm PST

Beer note: The Grizzly Paw Powder Hound

This is the third Grizzly Paw beer that I have mentioned on the blog. The Powder Hound is a blonde ale which is incredibly light and not one I would go for again. If you enjoy light beers this is for you, it is smooth and has a decent taste. I prefer beer with more hops, which makes my rating very biased. With that in mind let’s give it a 3/5.

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Mental Damnation: Reality Design Direction

In relation to the announcement of the second edition of Mental Damnation: Reality, the novel has a new visual direction as well. Initially the Mental Damnation series had a lot of design elements inspired from artwork seen in ancient Egypt and South America. It had a lot of vibrant colouring, grungy textures and crude line work. This direction was seen in the cover artwork, illustrations, book trailers and marketing material.

The series has always had a lot of visual support to help set the mood and has been an important part of the whole experience, much like audio was for Seed Me. This post will shed some light on what the new design direction will encompass.

Influences From the Right Time Era

After reworking the book’s lore and revamping the names of of various cities, creatures and characters, I wanted the design and artwork to reflect this. The new cover is a good indicator of how the artwork has been shifted to detailed line work pressed into leather – a very common way to bind book in the medieval times.

Naturally, the interior should reflect the novel as a part of this era. A lot of the illustrations found in books such as the Codex Gigas (a major inspiration for the new visual direction) have heavy focus on the clean, complex, line work and less about the colouring.

Mental Damnation Reality Drop cap Characters

A new addition that will be seen in the physical books are drop cap characters at the beginning of the chapters. During the medieval times, monks and priests were often the only people capable of writing books. Each one had their own signature drop cap at the beginning to identify that they wrote the book. So why not implement Mental Damnation drop caps?

The City of Renascence – Home of the Vazeleads

The original map of the vazelead’s home city was rather inaccurate in terms of size ratio and placement of buildings. The new map – with the new city name The City of Renascence – shows an accurate size of how large the city actually is. New areas of importance have been marked such as Scum Tower.

Updated Illustrations

In complements to the map and cover, the illustrations have been reworked by removing the colouring and focusing on detailed linework.

Be sure to follow the Facebook page, Twitter or my Instagram as more illustrations are revealed!

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Horror Author Konn Lavery at NSF Con

Seed Me is at the first NSF Con (Not Safe For)!

I am pleased to say that the first event of the year will be Calgary’s NSF Con (Not Safe For). I’ll be at booth 20A for the 1 day event on Saturday March 25th. This event has guests, exhibitors and a costume contest, while being for adults making it a mature fandom experience.

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

I’ll have copies of Seed Me and the last remaining first editions of Mental Damnation. In addition I’ll have Seed Me shirts by SANE Clothing and the World Mother: Seed Me Novel Score.

Where is the NSF Con?

Grey Eagle Resort and Casino

777 Grey Eagle Dr,

Calgary, AB T3E 3X8

Saturday, March. 25th 2pm-2am

I’ll be at booth 20A

See you all then!

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Suzy Vadori – Young Adult Author of The Fountain

This month’s guest is Suzy Vadori, a YA author whose novel The Fountain was a 2016 Aurora Award Nominee for the Young Adult category. Residing in Calgary with her husband and three children, she is greatly involved with the literary community.

Without further ado, let’s get to know Suzy.

Suzy Vadori, introduce yourself to us.

Hi Konn, thanks for having me! I’ve been a writer all my life, first as a tween with lots of half-written novels, then as a business writer these past twenty years as part of my operations career, and now as a Young Adult (YA) author. My first novel The Fountain was published just over a year ago.

What was your primary inspiration for writing The Fountain?

When I finally sat down and decided to write seriously, The Fountain came together out of several ideas. Firstly, I’ve always loved reading boarding school novels. There’s something about the setting that I find very inspirational, though I never went to boarding school – never even lived in a college dorm, since I went to university in Calgary where my parents lived and I lived at home during my studies. But somehow, the idea of living on a campus at a young age, with no parental guidance is a captivating subject for me. So, I had a setting for the book.

The main idea for the plot came from me becoming a parent and watching my own kids grow. I want my kids to grow up having every advantage that I can give them – I do – but I worry that having everything you’ve ever wanted isn’t good. So, the fountain that gives kids whatever they wish for at St. Augustus school was born. In The Fountain, Ava wishes that one of her classmates had never existed, and her wish coming true turns her whole world upside down.

The Fountain is your debut novel, have you written other books in the past?

The Fountain was the first novel that I ever finished, so I’m thrilled that it was published by Evil Alter Ego Press.

Do you plan on writing a sequel for the novel?

The Fountain Series is a planned trilogy. Book two in the series is coming out in 2017. It is called The West Woods, and takes place the year before The Fountain. It’s Courtney’s story – the story of the girl who was wished away in The Fountain.

The number one question I got from early readers of The Fountain was why Courtney acted the way that she did. In short, she wasn’t very nice. But far from being a one dimensional mean-girl, Courtney has a complicated reason that she became who she is when we meet her in The Fountain and we go with her on that journey in The West Woods.

The number two question I get by readers of The Fountain is what happens to Ava and her love interest next? For that, readers will have to wait until book three in the series.

Related to the previous question, what is your next project?

Right now, The West Woods is in editing with Evil Alter Ego Press, but book three of the series is also well under way, it’s keeping me busy.

Do you have a preferred genre to write in? Or possibly one you do not like?

I love writing for young adults for lots of reasons. First and foremost, I wanted to write books that I could share someday soon with my own kids (ages 10, 8 and 5). I also have great memories of being a teen myself and those memories seem crystallized in time, which makes it easy for me to relate to the characters I write. Lastly, the pace of young adult books is exciting. Sometimes when I do a read through of my own books, I get so engrossed that I can’t stop. That’s when I know it’s good.

I do have a project I’m working on with a plot that lends itself better to adult fiction. But I love my young adult readers so much I’m working on a way to adapt the story for YA. It’s proving tricky, but I’m hopeful I’ll find a way, because I’m really excited about writing it.

What started you to pursue your writing career?

I’ve always wanted to be a writer. While on maternity leave with my third child, I finally sat down and started typing. That project became The Fountain and I haven’t stopped writing since.

Thank you for joining us Suzy to talk about your writing!

You can find Suzy’s work on her website and on Amazon or Indigo:

https://suzyvadori.wordpress.com

The Fountain on Amazon

The Fountain on Indigo

You can follow her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Goodreads at:

https://www.facebook.com/suzyvadoriauthor

https://www.instagram.com/suzyvadori

https://twitter.com/vadoris

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14593464.Suzy_Vadori

 

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5 Ways to Organize Your Novel

Writing a book requires a lot of dedication and time. This is why it is important to organize your novel. Some authors do this by jotting down plot outlines, chapter outlines, timelines and keeping bulletin boards. There are also many other forms of tracking your storyline to ensure the book follows a logical path, also help you pave a path from start to finish. On the flip side, some authors fly by the seat of their pants and write as they go. They will write as they need to in order to reach a deadline. Both of these forms of writing can be successful as long as you stick to it. You might be one of these extremes or some sort of happy medium in the middle. As long as you find a form that works best for you, stick with it.

When should I focus on organizing my novel’s plot?

If you are finding yourself getting confused with the plot’s direction, facing writers block, or forgetting key elements in the story. You might be getting yourself lost with details such as a character’s hair colour, the protagonist’s father or a major event that triggered the storyline. If these are the caose, it might be time to look at a new way to establish your novel so nothing is left in the dust. Or as I like to call it – avoiding plot holes.

How do I organize my novel?

As mentioned earlier, there are many ways to do this. A good strategy to pinpoint how you can organize it is to find out what you are struggling to keep track of in your current writing process and write these struggles down.

There is no right way to organize yourself for writing a book.

To further elaborate, below are some ideas that can help you find a means that best suits you. Some of these may apply and you may end up merging some of the ideas into your own groove.

Plot and Chapter Outlines – This was covered in a previous blog series post but is possibly the most valuable planning process to follow. You quite literally write yourself a bullet list to follow from beginning to end with your novel.
Character Sheets – Again, this is covered in a previous blog series. Character sheets will help you remember personality and physical traits of your characters so you do not have to backtrack and find what colour their eyes were or risk the chance of inconsistencies in your book.
Style Guide – Or this can also be known as an index or glossary for your book. This type of organization works well for fantasy or science fiction novels. You can keep track of characters, places, items, historical events or section that fits your book to help organize all of the otherworldly things found in the book.
Bulletin Board – This was mentioned at the beginning of the blog. A bulletin board can either by a physical board with sticky notes or pinned paper on your wall or something like a private Pinterest board where you keep various notes of the plots and characters.

With a physical board you can use draw string to connect certain pins as well to represent relations.
Sketch Book – An exceptionally helpful piece of organization is a sketch book (or an idea book covered in a previous post). Their purpose is to jot down any thoughts that come to mind. These books do not have to ever be shared with the public, so in a way it is a lot like a diary. You can write down dreams, plot premises or character ideas for novels. It is a blank piece of paper with its sole purpose of extracting the ideas from your head out into the physical world.

What about actual tools or tricks to help keep me organized?

There are many different ways to write a book and the ideas listed above are only a handful of what are out there. Personally I have never been a fan of writing software that claim to offer an all-in-one solution to writing a book. I’m old fashioned when it comes to organization and believe in writing things down. I also have the memory of a goldfish, so writing them down gives me something to reference in the future.

I hope these tips have given you some ideas to keep yourself organized for your writing. If you have any other insight on organizing a book, feel free to share it in the comments.

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A New Reality

Finally, the big announcement. If you’ve been following my social media, it has been a few months of me suggesting on what I have been working on. With the only hint being that it is related to the Mental Damnation series. After five months of working, it is finally ready to be shared with the world:

All three Mental Damnation Novels will be retired.

You might be thinking: wait, retired? Yes, you read that correctly. Reality, Dream and Fusion will be taken off the market in eBook and paperback in early 2017.

Let me give you some backstory on this… After finishing the launch of Seed Me I had two routes I could go, either work on a new book, or finish the Mental Damnation storyline which had yet to be completed.

Why am I not working on the fourth installment?

Being away from the Mental Damnation series for two years, I was able to come back to it with a fresh pair of eyes, and able to forget most of the history and plot. I reviewed Reality and portions of Dream and Fusion. Approaching it from a reader’s perspective and reviewing compiled feedback gained over the years from other readers, I learned that these novels were not up to par with what my writing is capable of. The narrative structure, lore and the fictional world itself had potential to be drastically improved. Not to mention Reality was written five years ago, you can learn a lot as a writer within that time. This is why I decided to take a step back and critically edit the series and re-release them.

Yes, this is like George Lucas re-releasing the Star Wars trilogy over and over.

But no, I won’t re-re-release the novels. Plenty of novels go through various editions throughout time. The plan is to finish the Mental Damnation series from start to finish over the next several years with a final conclusion to the storyline. No third editions or re-re-releases.

Mental Damnation Reality: Second Edition

Naturally the first novel to be released under the second edition is Reality. The original 70,000 words have been rewritten with an additional 30,000, making a total of 100,000 words. So there’s a lot more backstory, character development, improved narrative direction and updated illustrations and an encyclopedia for reference.

This is the new book cover for the second edition of Reality. The new visual direction moves away from the tribal approach and compliments artwork seen in the renaissance time. More on the artwork will be shared in a future blog post.

Mental Damnation: Reality Book Synopsis

Having her family murdered by the humans during her people’s banishment from the surface world, Krista and her only friend, Darkwing, struggle to remain alive. The pair of reptilian street scum live in their newfound home, the City of Renasence, dictated by a fascist military known as the Renasence Guard. The two find themselves at odd ends when Krista puts her faith in the Five Guardians’ goal of unification, while Darkwing chooses to stand with a notorious gang, the Blood Hounds, who are known for their anarchist views

This divide in their friendship forces Krista to persist on her own as the Five Guardians become crazed from an unknown disease – Mental Damnation. After their infection, the Guardians develop a bizarre interest in her, claiming they must reap her innocence for their newfound master, the Weaver.

With a military dictatorship, politically-driven gangs and their guardians infected and on a hunt for her, Krista has limited options for survival: Does she fend for her life in the City of Renasence, against menacing forces, or risk leaving everything behind and enter the uncharted realm of the underworld?

Release Date

Mental Damnation: Reality release date will be confirmed, stay tuned. It will be this year though.

I have plenty of more to share about the series and it will come in due time. This is just a taste of what will be coming down the pipeline.

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Want To Be Taken Seriously With Your Goals?

January, a start to a whole new year. People spend the beginning months focusing on their New Year’s Resolutions. They are determined to fulfill their new goals of making a change in their life. As I have previously said, I have never been a fan of the yearly resolutions and focus on 2, 5 and 10 year planning. Regardless of your method, a lot of people end up failing these new endeavors after several months and quickly go back to their old ways of being. Why is this?

Welcome to another edition of Unprocessed Thoughts.

For the beginning of the year I thought I’d share some theories I had about goals. Goals are often driven by motivation, which is a powerful thing when you have it. When you do not have it, trying to achieve something can be very challenging. Perhaps this is where a lot of people fall off the bandwagon in the New Year. During the holidays, we have a clearer mind and can foresee what we would like to achieve. Once we get back into the daily routines of our lives we quickly lose sight of this, returning to our day in and day out behavior, creating a mental tunnel vision.

Don’t lose your clarity.

When you are on holidays it is easy to have a clear sense of direction, let your mind be at ease and dream big. After the holidays, most people return to a live style that they are not wanting for themselves and become discouraged. It is a shame to see people drop out on their dreams. So what about those people that do achieve their yearly resolutions or long term goals? How do they maintain a sense of clarity when so many others do not?

Discipline and repetition are greater than motivation

There’s a number of inspirational quotes and articles that go into deeper theology about why motivation and drive are not always the key to achieving your goals, so I won’t get into that. What I will share is that people who are well disciplined in their task, will find a way to get it done. They will continually work towards their goal regardless if they “feel the inspiration” or if they are in a good mood. The reason they can do this is because they have trained themselves to remain in control of their wants and needs. They keep focused on long term goals opposed to giving into their immediate desires.

Disciplined people simply get the work done.

How do they do this? Disciplining yourself for any goal is a lot like a physical workout routine. You have a certain agenda for your workout and then you get it done. There’s not a lot else to it. People that do exercise on a regular basis do it regardless of their motivation to go to the gym. They have trained themselves to persist onwards. This methodology can be applied to any other medium as well. There is more to Nike’s famous slogan “Just Do It” than to sell sports equipment.

Want to be taken seriously? Take it seriously and do It.

To recap the original topic of this month’s Unprocessed Thoughts, if you want to achieve your New Year’s resolutions or to really be taken seriously with what you are doing, you need to do it. No one else is going to make it happen for you. Rain or shine.

Beer Note: Saigon Export

I tried this beer at a Vietnamese restaurant grabbing a vermicelli bowl. It is apparently the only authentic Vietnamese beer brewed in Vietnam. It is a much lighter beer than what I am used to and doesn’t have much taste in general. I’d give it 2/5 since it was enjoyable when chilled. Other than that it doesn’t have anything else going for it.

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A New Kind of Monster

Check out the interview I had with The Hungry Monster review about Seed Me.

A New Kind of Monster

We cover the following questions:

Seed Me follows Logan as he tries to navigate a murder, avoid a deadly cult and try to figure out who the girl was he made out with behind the dumpster. This is a unique setup to a novel. What was the inspiration that made you want to write this story?

I enjoyed the characters in this story because they were slow to build but had depth. What was your writing plan when creating these characters?

There is a mysterious group of people called Harvesters that may or may not be behind the murders in town. How did you set about creating this group and did you accomplish everything you wanted?

What is the next book that you are working on and when will that be available?

Read the full interview on The Hungry Monster Website

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Stop Working!

Stop working. Read, meet up with some friends or go for a drink.

In this day and age we are seeing some of the greatest technological advancements that are allowing us to communicate faster, produce quicker and more efficiently to save us more time – yet we seem to have less and less of it. Even through all of these amazing inventions to improve our lives we fill our spare time with moving onto the next task. At least, this can be the case if you’re a workaholic (like me).

As an author in this day and age, we spend much of our time wearing many hats and filling many roles for our career to advance forward. We complete the tasks of writing, marketing, promotion, design, and media release among many others so we can get our work out there. It takes a lot of time and you can easily be sucked into a vortex of working, reaching milestone after milestone that you forget to actually stop.

Stop working. You are not a machine.

Our tools have surpassed us in processing ability and can accomplish more than we could ever on our own, that does not mean you are one of them. So stop working so intensely. We are still human and require time away to either sleep, lounge around or spend quality time with people you enjoy. In the case with writing, putting down the pencil or putting away the keyboard is valuable so you don’t burn yourself out or run into writer’s block. Taking breaks can also help rejuvenate your ideas, helping you think more creatively.

If you want to really dive into the technicalities of the relation between sleeping and creativity, check out this article on BBC.

The brain is a muscle and it needs rest.

Think of the brain like any other muscle to the body, if you exercise too much you’re going to risk injury. With the brain you might be risking your sanity or mental wellbeing.

Like many writers, you probably have another source of income that takes up your time during the week. So writing is probably done during off hours, weekends or somewhere in-between. Working this intensely will ultimately wear you down. This applies to full time writers as well who invest many hours during the week to their writing.

Work smart, not hard

It is an old cliché and a wise one at that. It is very easy to get caught up in the rat race of life or the work vortex. You work intensely and repetitively thinking you are being productive. In the example of writing, taking rest can be more productive so when you come back to the chapter, you will think quicker and approach it with a fresh perspective.

More food for thought can be found in The Huffington Post article.

This doesn’t mean you should quit.

The idea that I am proposing is quite the opposite. Taking a break is often more productive as previously stated. What you have to keep in mind is being disciplined with stopping though. Stopping because you are frustrated and you need a break is not the best plan of action. Take short consistent breaks after reaching small milestones. Some examples of this can be:

Daily, take a break every couple of hours to walk or grab a coffee.
Weekly, work hard throughout the five or six days and dedicate one day during the week to no work. Maybe learn a new skill or spend it reading.
Yearly, take a trip or a staycation. Save these for rewards after reaching big milestones in your writing career.

If there is one thing you should take away from this, it is the three points above.

Don’t burn yourself out. Practice the discipline of breaks so you perform better and work smart.

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