Terah Edun's Blog, page 20
May 20, 2012
Super Quick 5 Second Survey on Firestorms! Thanks #amwriting #YaLitChat
Personally I’m leaning towards both as a plot point. Choice A is a natural firestorm sweeping across the countryside that the students must face alone and harness their magic to defeat. Choice B is political intrigue brewing at the royal courts which leads to Maride facing execution for the murder of his fiancée.
Choice B wouldn’t be resolved until the second book. Choice A would be a great character-building exercise for Vedaris (dragon with no powers), Allorna (royal guardian trainee), Sitara (amnesiac storm-caller), Maride (researcher-cum-librarian) and Sidimo (glyph-reading healer) that would have an immediate resolution. It would also lead to a more immediate strengthening of their bond. If I had to choose just one it would be the firestorm – it’s more exciting to write about.
Also BIG NEWS! Yesterday I made it to 40,000 words!!! Hip, hip hooray for me. Now I’m expanding my original 55,000 WIP to 80,000. I honestly don’t think I can get all my plot points in with just 65K, which I did consider. But more on that later.
Filed under: Uncategorized
May 14, 2012
The 140-Character Twitter Elevator Pitch #WVTP
In one hour and with the help of four amazing crit partners (I love Twitter) my Writer’s Voice Twitter Pitch (practice pitch since I’m not actually in the Writer’s Voice contest) went from Version 1 to Version 5. Quite proud of it’s metamorphosis. No idea if I’m ever going to use this but it might make a nice Twitter bio.
Any comments on how to make my #WVTP better? Send them my way!
Version 1
A political storm is rising, his fiancee is dead & school has just begun. To stop his execution five friends must master their magic. #WVTP
Version 2
A crisis at court leaves Maride accused of murder. School has begun, his execution looms & five friends face the trials together. #WVTP
Version 3
His fiancée’s death leaves Maride accused of murder. School has begun, his execution looms & five friends face the trials together. #WVTP
Version 4
At the Madrassa four unlikely & untried allies forge a bond: A dragon, a healer, a storm-caller, a librarian and a guardian. #WVTP
Version 5
After a mysterious death, five unlikely allies forge a bond at a magical academy to save their kin from the fire storm that’s brewing. #WVTP
In version five *fire* is both literal and figural. There’s going to be an actual firestorm and there’s a political fire storm brewing. I think the vagueness gives it a sense of urgency.
Filed under: Uncategorized
May 3, 2012
Staying True To The Script: Book Deals That Spawn Television and Film Rights
Hollywood Producers and Development Executives have always taken a special interest in optioning film rights to books. And why wouldn’t they? It’s a script and idea already written. They just have to repackage the diamond-in-the-rough for a silver screen audience. The trick is identifying the book or series that will really be the next hit TV show or blockbuster movie. A great way they’ve done this? Option the Film Rights to books that are proven international bestsellers – think The Da Vinci Code, The Lord of the Rings, The Secret Life of Bees. Television rights can be just as lucrative for Hollywood – including The Secret Circle, Sex and the City, Bones, TrueBlood, and Dexter.
In the three months since best-selling E.L. James book, Fifty Shades of Grey, went viral the Film Rights have sold to Universal Pictures for seven figures (with an estimated value over $3,000,000.) It has a built-in revenue market. Just as St. Martins Press assumed that the millions of individuals who bought the self-published work on Amazon would be a prediction for even greater numbers of print copies sold, the film executives at Universal along with the 10 other outbid studios made the assumption that the collective readership of print and ebooks would be automatic movie ticket sales. They’re probably right.
But Fifty Shades of Grey and the prior examples only show successful bestsellers making a further leap up the ladder. What about books or series which have not been published but hit the ground running with film options? The Selection, by Kiera Cass, was picked up by the CW before the first book had even been released. Now truth be told, I haven’t read it (but plan to – it’s on my to-read list after Bitterblue) but from the awesome book trailer and reviews it couldn’t be more clear that this book is made for television. In fact one of the Editorial Reviews posted on the Amazon page is “Reality T.V. meets dystopian fairy tale in Kiera Cass’s delightful debut. Charming, captivating, and filled with just the right amount of swoon!” – Kiersten White. So yeah, there are those books that have that television angle. (Kiera Cass has an amazing Youtube vlog going on btw…makes me want to write a post on author outreach & new media.)
Trailer for The Selection
It’s cute but I’ll be honest when I ask, beg, and plead with the CW to have a more diverse cast of princesses-to-be in the television series.
Of course the optioning of film or television rights is no guarantee that your book will make it onto anybody’s screen. Not A Fire Exit was optioned for a film in June 2010 by JoJo Road Productions. It’s now almost two years later. I haven’t seen a movie about muscular atrophy recently, have you?
Now what about staying true to the book? There are some really, really great examples of this. And some really, really bad ones. What do I mean by staying true? Not changing the plot significantly, no adding in 10 different main characters who weren’t in the book and visually a good representation of the book.
Good Adaptations
The Game Of Thrones series by George R.R. Martin
The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Middle Ground
The Sookie Stackhouse Series by Charlaine Harris
*According to my own methodology this is a bad adaptation BUT for many, many viewers (myself included) the flexibility that Alan Ball has taken with the Trueblood script has introduced amazing characters who the original readers would have never met. In fact, Lafayette is a supporting back house character in the books, I know CRAZY right?, and Jessica doesn’t even exist. So change can be good.
Bad Adaptations
Special Recognition for The Last Airbender (Television series turned movie)
What do you all think are other examples of Bad or Good Adaptations? Where do The Vampire Diaries or The Secret Circle belong?
Filed under: Contracts
April 30, 2012
Celebrating My One-Month Blog Anniversary, 15,000 Words & Awesome Book Trailers
My WIP, Red Madrassa, made it to 23,000 words this weekend which is roughly 85 pages in Word. In the month since I began this blog on March 27th, I’ve truly been able to focus on the book and have grown as a writer. Just four short weeks ago I started at 30 pages which was roughly 7,000 words and a vague plot outline. I’ve even got a faint sketch of plot developments for Book 2 in my head. I’m very excited to continue writing and it has been a joy to see my characters grow and develop.
My goal still stands at 55,000 – 65,000 words. I’d like to finish up this WIP by the end of May and start serious draft edits. For one thing I need to edit my Prologue into a kick-ass first chapter. Then it’s on to plot development, character corrections and fixing silly mistakes.
Now on to the second part of this post: Book Trailers! I’m not a huge fan of book trailers, honestly because it’s rare that I come across them – they don’t tend to go viral like movie trailers. I’ve actually never been sent a book trailer – I’ve always stumbled across them. I’m more likely to be sent an Amazon book page link with a harried text to READ THIS!
For more pretty awesome trailers see Readinista’s post!
But here are two of the ones that I can honestly say I love:
The Gathering Storm by Robin Bridges
The Black Prism by Brent Weeks
What are your favorites? Post the link – I’ll add them to the list.
Filed under: Writing
April 21, 2012
April 18, 2012
Into The Summer – My Goals For 2012
My goals for 2012 are (and I’ll go back edit this with a strike-through as accomplished):
*Finish the first draft of my WIP - Red Madrassa. It currently stands at 36% done – 20,000 odd words. There’s so much more to add and I enjoy every second that I get to spend with the characters. But tendrils of the second book are already bouncing around in my head so I need to get this first book completed.
*Join DIY MFA’s Sub2Pub challenge. It’s basically the literary fiction version of the dreaded academic ‘publish or perish’! I commit to sending queries out throughout 2012 until I receive an offer or reach December 31, 2012. I see this as great motivation to finish and polish my WIP Red Madrassa.
*Find a young adult Crit group or partner. I have one super beta reader but I’m always looking for more! Send me a line at algardisbooks (at) gmail or comment on this post if you have any suggestions for partners or crit groups to join. I’d love to exchange critiques with someone who also writes young adult fantasy fiction.
A) I’ve found an awesome crit partner through AbsoluteWrite & MyWritersCircle which both have very helpful forum posts for critiques.
B) In an effort to give back and be helpful in another person’s quest to publish I’ve joined The BETA Community at YA Stands. I’m open to High/Epic Young Adult Fantasy submissions.
*Find a job in sub-Saharan Africa. My day job revolves around international development. I’m ready to get field work experience overseas. Plus the research aspect of it will help with my landscape and language.
My dream field location: Juba, South Sudan.
I’ve set this picture as my desktop background. Every day I will look at it and every day I will work towards my goal of getting a development job in Juba, South Sudan. While writing my heart out. 
A) Interviewed with International Development firm A in second week of May for a position in Juba!
I. Completed second interview with International Development firm A in third week of May.
II. Received the job offer!!!
B) Received an interview request for International Development firm B in third week of May for a position in Kabul, Afghanistan. Position is unpaid and cost prohibitive. Decided not to pursue.
Filed under: Writing
April 16, 2012
Images & A Youtube Clip That Inspire My Landscape
Thanks to Elizabeth Briggs, who gave me this awesome idea of creating a blog post on what images I envision when working on Red Madrassa. Elizabeth was just signed by Kate Testerman of KT Literary Agency so congrats are also in order!
I’m currently working on my first full-length novel. Aiming for roughly 55,000 words and I’m about half-way to that mark. So every day is generally me sitting down, writing and reading back through for in-line edits, missing words, grammatical errors etc.
The book revolves around 5 youths who are fast becoming five friends. They are an amazing group of diverse young people from all walks of life in a high fantasy world complete with dragons and portals. One of the youths happens to be a street-rat dragon.
Without further ado here are some images or video clips that inspire my landscape:
Setting the scene:
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Will work on a post of characters next if you’d like to see.
Filed under: Writing
