K.M. Shea's Blog, page 59

Endeavor has arrived!

The long awaited sixth book of King Arthurs and Her Knights is here! Endeavor is now available for purchase!

This book focuses on the aftermath of Britt’s big reveal, and I have high hopes that you Merlin/Britt shippers will be pleased with this one. Here’s the description:

Only a few weeks have passed since Britt—or, as most know her, King Arthur—was outed as a girl. Britt’s relationship with her knights is strained and precarious, Lancelot is mucking up everything from tournaments to questing, and Merlin starts to act strangely when a beautiful girl named Lady Vivien comes to Camelot.

Can Britt reclaim her knights’ loyalty? Will Merlin finally realize how much Britt means to him?

So? What do you think? I’m keeping my mouth zipped about the plot for a few days so I don’t give any spoilers away, so I can’t say much more. While I am not offering a review special for Endeavor (Editor #1 and I were working on this book until the last second, so I didn’t have time to write any extras) I would really appreciate if you would write an honest review for Goodreads or Amazon–or both! Also check back in a few days as I should have an American Thanksgiving gift for you. Thanks for reading, Champions. I hope you enjoy the new book!

Writing Tips: Character Movement

Greetings, Champions! Before we get started with today’s topic–Character Movement–I want to announce that I have an instagram account: km.shea. Follow my account if you want to get a little glimpse into my life! Thus far I have two extremely lonely pictures on there, but as the account is brand new, it will take me a few days to fix that. Additionally, I did some major remodeling to the categories section (omgawsh it took me all morning to sort my posts) so the categories cloud on the right navigation bar will be easier to navigate now.

Okay, let’s begin! When I say today I’m going to discuss character movement, I mean two things 1) actual movement–think verbs, like: jumped, skipped, swung–and 2) facial expressions.

Editor #2 watches character movement–facial expressions in particular–like a hawk. The misuses she commonly watches for are…

Overused movement/expression: A lot of writers use smile too much–heck, I use smile too much. It’s a challenge, but if you notice your characters are displaying one expression over and over again, try to think of an alternate way of showing that feeling. Instead of smiling their eyes could brighten, or they could jump for joy.
Continuity: This means that you can’t have Sally standing in paragraph one, and in paragraph two she gets up from a chair.
No movement: There are times when you want a lot of dialog, and there are times when you just want action. However, these times need to be carefully balanced and interrupted. If the characters are having an emotional conversation, you need to use their body language to give the readers clues as to what they are feeling.
Too much movement: Readers are intelligent, so you don’t have to spell every gesture out for them. If your character is getting up from a desk you don’t have to say “Hunter pushed his chair back from the desk and stood up out of the chair” you can simply say “Hunter stood.” Your reader will understand. (That being said, if your character is stuck in a bear-trap, you better explain how he got himself unstuck before he stood.)
Tame verbs: Character movement needs to be strong. Why have your character walk when they can march, or stroll, or saunter? However, you don’t want to have “strolled” or “sauntered” in your manuscript more than a a few times. It’s all a balancing act. In my original draft of The Snow Queen: Heart of Ice, Rakel–the heroine–winces about eight times. That is five times too many, so Editor #2 had me change some of the instances to flinched and grimaced.

Now that list is some of the areas Editor #2 has pointed out as errors, but there are a few good things you should know about character movement as well.

Body language, actions, and facial expressions should all give hints and clues to what your characters are feeling, and what’s going on. Movement can also be an expression of the character itself.

Bill Amend understands the importance of character movement… For anyone who doesn’t know this comic, that’s Peter–a senior in high school–cross-dressing as his little sister Paige.

Tari–the nimble elf heroine of Red Rope of Fate–does a lot of gliding, waltzing, and dancing. Her movements are beautiful and elegant because of what she is. Ahira of Princess Ahira is a little more clumsy so she occasionally trips, gets dirty, and stomps around when she’s feeling bad tempered. And that’s the differences between two females. If you compare them to, say, Colonel Friedrich of Cinderella, the Colonel stands a lot taller, saunters, and has the tendency be on his guard due to his military training.

Figuring out how they move is especially important for your main characters, and it needs to be consistent. You can’t have your heroine be clumsy one moment and then as graceful as a swan in the next scene–unless you make the change gradually over the duration of the novel. Also, a few secondary characters might have unique movements, but you need to make sure you don’t go overboard or everyone will be skipping, romping, and storming all over the place. It will get distracting and feel forced. Keeping that in mind, the same movement technique can be used to show information about background characters that have an impact on your story.

Let’s say your characters have broken into a castle and are trying to avoid any guards. Although the guards are background roles who likely will never be named, their movements can help readers grasp a blanket generalization about them. Using body language can tell readers (and your characters) if they need to worry about the guards or not. Horrible guards would be slumped–possibly leaning against a wall–and perhaps even look bored. Elite honor guards, on the other hand, would stand at perfect attention with their hands on their weapons.

Alright, so I’ve had a chance to try explaining this to you, now you’re free to fly away and try it for yourself. However, I highly recommend you do a bit of research first and skim a few of your favorite books to watch how the authors move their characters. Observing it in other stories will help you see the rhythm and pattern writers use.

Whew, and that’s everything I can think of today. Thanks for reading, Champions! I hope you found this helpful.

Endeavor: Cover Reveal

Thank you to everyone who voted in last week’s poll that asked what kind of writing topics you would like to hear about. Writing the book won with 87 votes, and pre-writing came in a close second with 83! After that the gap widened by a lot, so coming in third was marketing with 33 votes. I’ll be sure to keep this in mind for future topics!

But if you’ve looked at the title of this post, that isn’t what you’re eagerly anticipating. Instead of prattling on, I’ll just cut to the chase:

Ta da! Coming November 24ish!

Yes, it’s the cover reveal for Endeavor! Before I talk about it, I’ve had a lot of worried readers who have been concerned I’ve pushed the release date out, but I haven’t! You have just a bit over a week to wait for it! I plan to release it next week, Tuesday, November 24ish. (I say ish because Amazon’s upload times are a little imprecise if I don’t use the pre-order feature. It might appear late Monday night, or early Wednesday morning at the latest.) Okay, on to the cover!

The following is a bit spoiler-ish, but only for the first five pages of the book so I assume none of you will mind discussing it. This cover is so perfect for Endeavor, I can’t help but chuckle when I look at it. The story opens with a tournament, in which the winner of the tournament will be named the Best Knight of Britt’s court. The knight on the cover is one of  the two final contestants in this Britt-sponsored-Tournament, Mordred. The book picks up mere weeks after Enlighten, so everyone is still a little awkward after Britt’s reveal, but they are predictably stoked to have an opportunity to beat each others brains out.

Thanks again, Myrrhlynn, for another excellent cover! I’m particularly excited about this one as it is the first King Arthurs cover to feature a human! Thank you, also, for hanging in there King Arthur Champions! I’m hopeful you will really enjoy this book. Until next time, thanks for reading!

Writing Tips: What do you want to see?

Hello Champions! It’s been a while since I’ve posted any writing tips, so I really wanted to do that today, but I realized I don’t really have a good idea what you guys want to know about writing, so instead I’m holding a poll to find out what interests you the most!

Take Our Poll

The poll will be open for roughly one week. You can only vote for one topic, but you can vote more than once–though I would appreciate it if you cast your votes for the things you are most passionate about so I know what to prioritize. These were all the general topics I could think of at the moment, but if you have a particular topic you would like to see me cover please give me a shout out in the comments below.

I’ll wait for the poll results before I tackle any real writing tips, but I know in the past I’ve been asked a few times by readers who badly want to write, but find it difficult to snatch more than a few minutes at a time. I have found the book for you: 5,000 words per hour. It’s an ebook that outlines how the author manages to write 4,000 to 5,000 words in an hour–which is roughly 8-10 pages of a Microsoft Word Document. Warning: I have tried his method, and I’m not certain how the heck he does it. Using his method DID help me increase my output, but I max out at roughly 2,000 words per hour, well below what he clocks in.

BUT, the idea of maximizing your output isn’t why I think you should check this book out. As I mentioned, I have this book in mind for writers who find it difficult to muster up the time. Trying to write for an hour is probably out of their reach. The reason why I think this book will be a perfect jump-start for you time-masters, is because he gives a detailed method that shows you how to start writing for five minute stretches. After a few weeks of practice, if you can slip a couple of these five minute sessions in your day, you should be able to get about a page done per day. It doesn’t sound like a fabulous pace, but after half a year you should have a decent-length novel!

That’s all for today, Champions! Thank you for voting in the poll, and I look forward to seeing what you guys are interested in. Have a great week!

Happy Halloween!

Trick or Treat, Champions! I hope you are all enjoying Halloween–has anyone had any trick-or-treaters yet? It begins for my neighborhood in about two hours, which is not soon enough! This year I bought Sour Punch Ropes–which is basically sour patch kids in a licorice shape–and I am have a dreadfully hard time not eating an entire bag by myself.

But! I do have a treat to share with you! First of all, Cinderella is officially for sale in paperback! Let there be many celebrations for I FINALLY got it released! Woohoo! Ugh, I am so sorry that took me so much longer than it should have, but it’s out!

Your second treat is a short story: A Mage Welcome! It is a nine page short story  starring Gemma and Stil of Rumpelstiltskin and Dylan and Prince Callan of Little Selkie. It follows the previous Timeless Fairy Tale crossover in that it observes the characters as they flock to Chanceux Chateau for the country summit Elle and Severin are holding. Originally this little puppy was only going to be about five pages, but the characters ended up running the show so…yes, nine pages.

Happy Halloween–I hope you enjoy it! Thank you for reading, Champions. I’ll see you next week!

C&C is FINALLY ready!

Rejoice, Champions! One of my much delayed projects has been finished! Cinderella and the Colonel has been officially released in paperback–see below for pictorial proof!

Sadly the book itself won’t be ready for to order for about three to four days. It takes Amazon a little while to get everything lined up and merged. In the meantime I am hard at work prepping Endeavor for publication, and working on a new fairy tale manuscript.

In a big topic hop, so far I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from readers about The Lost Files of the MBRC–which I’ve openly admitted is a bit of an experiment as it is a short story anthology that helps wrap up some of the details of Morgan’s life. Does the general consensus agree with me? It seems like everyone enjoyed the extra details, but I won’t know for sure without feedback.

It’s a short post today, but I’m on a bit of a time squeeze right now–Perfect Dog and I have dog obedience classes tonight so we’ve got to run. Take care, Champions! I’ll put up another post this weekend, so we’ll chat again soon.

The Lost Files of the MBRC

Good Morning, Champions! I’m pleased to announce that today marks the release of The Lost Files of the MBRC!

Yaaaaay! As I mentioned previously, it was so much fun returning to Morgan’s world! I love those characters so much–the only downfall of the hilarious MBRC cast is that there are SO MANY. Speaking of characters, let’s talk covers! Myrrhlynn copied the same style she used for the two novels, so they look all pretty and set-like. This cover features two previously known characters: Aysel Moonspell, a high elf; and Shale, a dark elf. Shale didn’t enter the MBRC series until the finale of Farewell to the MBRC? and you’ll better recognize her as belonging to the “exclusive” group, the Beer Brothers. (As you might recall, the Beer Brothers only drink root beer, so if you click on the cover and take a peek at the larger version, the can Shale is holding says “Root”) The last character depicted on the cover is unique to the anthology, so I’m going to keep my mouth shut about him to keep from giving away spoilers for those who haven’t cracked the book open yet.

I was a little worried that the short-stories wouldn’t allow me to deep character relationships, etc. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised the way the stories all came together. I particularly enjoyed writing A Magical Birthday–which follows Morgan on the night of her 21st birthday.

Okay, I’ll hush up until you all get a chance to read it. When you do, let me know which short story was your favorite–I’m keen to hear! Thank you for reading, Champions, and have a lovely day!

Raffle Winners!

The raffle for ten ebook copies of The Lost Files of the MBRC is over! There was a total of 155 entries, and the Rafflecopter widget picked ten random winners! Congratulations to:

Lynda S.
Tamara C.
Audrey L.
Ray Ray
Heather A. M.
Abigael S.
Jennifer L.
Megan
Jill J.
Marwa K.

Names are abbreviated for the sake of privacy, but all winners have already been notified via email. (Remember, winners, if you’ve already pre-ordered The Lost Files, I am happy to send a copy to the person of your choice!) Thank you to everyone who entered the raffle, and congratulations to the winners!

That was a lot of fun, but why stop with there? The Lost Files of the MBRC releases tomorrow–Thursday, October 15. I can’t wait to see what you guys think of the short stories, but there’s more good news.  I have officially decided to continue with the MBRC world. The main character will not be Morgan–although you’ll still see her around–but perhaps even more importantly I will not be able to start this book until at least 2017. My writing schedule is absolutely booked for 2016, so unfortunately MBRC fans will be waiting a while for the next installment. :( Sorry, I considered not telling you all so the wait wouldn’t kill you, but The Lost Files hints about who the new heroine will be, so I thought sharing would be better. You don’t meet the new heroine, but she is brought up indirectly several times. Keep an eye out and send me your best guesses!

Right. I’m going to duck out now during your shocked silence. Until next time, Champions! Thank you for reading, and thank you again to everyone who entered the raffle!

Fan Art!

Before we dive in, I just want to post a reminder that today–October 12–and tomorrow–October 13, are the last days you can enter the Lost Files of the MBRC ebook raffle. (Click here to enter!) I’ll be giving away ten copies instead of the originally planned five because of all the entries, so your chances of winning are better than you think.

Okay! Today I get to share a special treasure with you, Champions, that has me absolutely chuffed! A tremendously talented reader–who goes by the artistic name of Keepsake20–made a beautiful illustration of Merlin and Britt from King Arthurs and Her Knights. Check it out!

I was going to put a smaller version in this post (This is still scaled down a bit) but then I thought NAH~~!

I’ve got to say, she really nailed them. She included Merlin’s obsession with wearing gray, and did a fabulous job with his face and hair, and I think she perfectly captured Britt’s willowy build and her feminine features that give her a little more of a fairy or elf-like look. Truthfully I had a bit of a moment when I saw the image. It is so incredible to see life breathed into these characters through an entirely different medium.

Keepsake20 sent a link of the image to me, but I highly suggest checking out her Deviant-Artist page. She has some amazing art, featuring everything from Disney Princesses to Harry Potter to superheroes!  (Here’s the link to the Merlin and Britt image if you want to see it in its original glory and splendor.) She’s given me permission to put this beauty on my website, so it will pop up sometime soon as I try to find a perfect place for it.

This does bring up a topic I don’t think I have directly addressed before. If you’ve created fan-art of something from my stories–or fan anything, really–and would like to share it, don’t be afraid to send me a link in an email or comment on the blog! My creativity funnels mostly into writing, but I love and appreciate other kinds of art, too. (And when I say “fan-art” I don’t just mean drawings or digital paintings; I’m including photography, poetry, anything you can think of!)

Thank you for reading, Champions, and thank you again to Keepsake20 for this beautiful image! I hope you all have a splendid day.

Update!

Gosh, to borrow Editor #1’s saying–and yes, that would be Jeri–I feel like I’ve been drinking from a fire hose. Sorry to be so quiet over the past month, Champions! As you have probably guessed, The Lost Files of the MBRC was taking up a lot of time, and I couldn’t really talk about it. But I’ve gotten a lot of other projects off the ground, so let’s take a moment to get caught up!

So we have The Lost Files of the MBRC , which will be released in mid-October. That project is finished and ready to launch. (Hooray!) Also, additional announcement: as I’ve had just shy of 100 entries in my Lost Files of the MBRC raffle, I’ve decided to increase the number of free ebooks I’ll be giving away. Now I’ll be giving away ten free copies of this ebook. Thank you to everyone who enters!

Okay, up next is Endeavor–King Arthurs and her Knights book 6. Right now it’s getting shuttled back and forth between Editor #1 and me. She just sent me a corrected draft, but I’m going to make some tweaks and–depending how major they are–might ask her to take another look. You can expect Endeavor to hit Amazon Thanksgiving week–or for Non-Americans, that’s late November.

Finally we have The Snow Queen–book 1. The Snow Queen is a two-book series. Book 1 is currently with Editor #2 for the second round of edits. I spent all last week trying to tidy it up, but only time and Editor # 2 will tell if my work paid off. Book 1 will be released in mid-December, and I’m lining up Book 2 for a mid to late February release.

Meanwhile, Cinderella and the Colonel‘s paperback release is progressing! It’s officially registered with the US Library of Congress (Wheeeee!) and it has been formatted. The next big step is to get the cover formatted now that we know what the spine thickness needs to be. Poor Myrrhlynn is a bit over-worked right now, but I’m hoping to wrap up that process soon.

I’ll spend the rest of October tidying up Endeavor and Snow Queen Book 1, and hopefully by the end of the month I’ll be able to get a start on Snow Queen book 2. If you didn’t catch it, this does mean I’ll have a book coming out this month, next month, and the month after that! Hopefully these stories will bring fun times for everyone.

In the meantime, I’m hoping to finally get a chance to have some non-work related posts with you guys. I’ve found some fun writing resources and a few awesome things I can’t wait to share, but more on that in future posts. Until then, take care, Champions, and I apologize for the radio silence, but I’m finally back!