Briana Vedsted's Blog, page 10

Guest Blog: Charles E. Yallowitz

Classic Creatures: To Alter or Not to Alter

Thank you to Briana Vedsted for asking me to do this guest blog. Her question was how difficult it is to give creatures new abilities. This stems from how many classic monsters are taken and changed to give a new twist or suit a genre change. Dragons without fire, sparkling vampires, tall goblins, and other examples can be found throughout literature. Some are successful and others come off as horrible insults to the creature. I’m going to start with the most extreme example from my writing: Orcs of Windemere.

I decided that I wanted to make a major change to the orcs in my fantasy world. Now, you can change the appearance of a lot of creatures relatively easily as long as you keep a few key features. For orcs, this is large size and pronounced incisors of either overbite or underbite variety. I changed up their color (made them gray) and gave them perpendicular ears, but the big change was in attitude. Orcs are typically the vicious savages that need to be slain by the heroes because they side with the villain. In Windemere, I gave them a central government and replaced their bestial nature with a wild philosopher mentality. There are still orc bandits that wish to do harm, but there are such groups of all races in Windemere. The orc government even goes political by letting the bandits survive to remind the other races what would happen if the orcs had no central government. Another twist on the orcs is that a female orc is statuesque, blonde, and more gorgeous than another other non-magical race. This is because in orc history, they were cursed to find their women repulsive and never breed. The female orcs set out to reverse the curse and ended up being transformed to undo the curse. So, they’re a beauty and the beast society that rarely sees anyone as beautiful or ugly.

That long example brings me to the simplest answer: retain some of the original and change enough to make your creatures stand out. You should have some reasoning behind the changes too. I’m not talking about a book explanation, but your own reasoning. Remember that these creatures have survived in literature for longer than you’ve been writing and they have done so for a reason. A dragon can exist without fire, but you need to keep the menacing power and some reptilian features. A large bat with six legs isn’t a dragon and calling it such can be seen as the author being too lazy to come up with a name for it.

It was also asked about powers being added to monsters. For example, a Pegasus that can spit fire or a troll that can change size. This is an easier way to differ your monsters from the original, but it requires that you put some thought into it. The powers need to make some type of sense for the creature. If you have your trolls weak against fire then it makes little sense for them to be spitting it. Something like this is very sloppy and can make it too easy for the monster to be defeated. An example from my own world is that the griffins of Windemere are able to fire lightning in certain situations. At a certain age they’ve gathered enough static electricity to do this. Another ability is that they can understand every spoken language after a few words because they have been used as flying mounts of centuries. Both of these abilities make sense for their role and have a logical explanation, which helps make them more acceptable.

Now if you go very far off the beaten path, like sparkling vampires, then you should have an explanation somewhere. People are very attached to their monsters and you have to be ready for the backlash. The bigger the changes, the more necessary an in-book explanation might be. It could be a simple mention of an evolution or a demonstration of why the changes are necessary in that world. Still, you’re not going to make everyone happy with the changes you make. This is something you will have to understand, but not let it stop you. The beauty of fictional creatures is that they are malleable and you can alter them if you need to. As long as you retain the core of the creature, you can do a lot and not get yelled at too much by fans.

To read more of Charles‘s work, go here: http://legendsofwindemere.com/

And then, either check out his book of poems, or The Legends of Windemere Series: Book One and Book Two.

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Published on September 10, 2013 03:13

Blogger spotlight

I’m spotlighting two bloggers this week. These two very thoughtful ladies are hosting the around the world ‘Romancing September’ blog tour. I was given a spot on the tour, and got a chance to talk about my Western Romance, The Untold Story of Margaret Hearst.

So, thank you kindly to Stephanie and Rosie!

You should really stop by their blogs, http://stephanie-hurt.com/ and http://rosieamber.wordpress.com/ and catch up on all the authors they’ve interviewed, as well as read about their own book(s).

http://stephanie-hurt.com/my-books/

http://rosieamber.wordpress.com/my-books/

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Published on September 09, 2013 08:29

Day 6 of Romancing September Across The World Blog Tour

Reblogged from Stephanie Hurt - Author/Accountant/Children's Minister:

Welcome to Day 6 of the Romancing September Across The World Blog Tour. The question I put out to all of these authors was “What challenges do you face in writing romance in today’s society?”

Don’t forget to go over to Rosie Amber’s page and check out her page too. I’ll put the link at the bottom of this post.

Romancing September - Briana Vedsted (Day 6)

Reblogged from Rosie Amber:

It's Day 6 of Romancing September and our guest today is Briana Vedsted, in a few hours you can hear more from Briana over with Stephanie. Where you can read Briana's views on writing romance in today's society.

1) Where is your home town?

Pleasant View, Colorado

2) How long have you been writing?

Roughly seven years. The year I turned thirteen is when I became serious about devoting my time to writing.

Cover art

How many of you authors out there have original cover art for your book(s)? Even if you are self published, did you have a cover drawn by an artist you know, an artist you found online, or maybe you drew it yourself?

I was recently told that all major book titles that go through traditional publishing houses do not get original cover art. Their covers come from royalty-free, stock photo websites. Does that mean that the covers for Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight Saga came from such a website? I find that hard to believe.

The cover art my vanity press supplied me, however, was on one of those sites. It was disappointing, of course, but the thing that really bothered me was being told no one uses original cover art anymore. Is it only us self-published people who spend more than $0.20 on cover art? Don’t you feel like your original cover art is special, and sets your book apart from the rest?

Yes, I love the cover art I was given for my Billy the Kid book, but part of me is sad that there are other books out there with the same cover mine.

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Published on September 04, 2013 09:49

No Sells Yet

Reblogged from Fall'N Love Crafts:

*Sighs*

Well, Fall'N Love Crafts hasn't had any sells yet. But I won't give up! I know many of you authors, small business owners, and other people who just want to share who they are to the world have waited for years without any luck. A big cheers to all of you! And good luck to many of the people who are just beginners.

Only a few hours left!

Today is your last chance to get my western, woman’s fiction book “A Girl Named Cord” at the sale price of 99 cents.

Follow young Ms. Cord McCoy through life’s hardships and romances across the wild west as she finds good friends and bad enemies, a man who promises to love her and a woman who dreams of killing her.

Buy now!

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Published on September 02, 2013 10:15

The Last Enchantress Blog Tour

The Science of Magic

Judith Here, the co-author of The Last Enchantress

I was writing a book about witches in Birmingham when I hit a road block. Magic, if you have magic you can do anything. What’s the limit? Who could stop you? Nothing, was the answer. If you had magic you could make anything that you needed. A book about a group of people that got everything they needed or wanted wasn’t going to work. I needed boundaries, limits but with magic what is the limit?

At four o’clock every day I would turn on Oprah and every day during this time they were talking about the law of attraction and The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. I was like, oh no not this again and would turn it off. Until one day I turned on Oprah and this woman talking about The Secret said these magic words, “It’s Magic.” The Secret or Law of Attraction is magic. I requested The Secret on book on tape from my local library and started studying it. Magic’s only limitation is its wielder. It’s their thoughts that control the magic and they must learn to control their mind. And a few days later I had the dream of Eva walking into the church and the rest is history.

Check out a special sneak peek of The Last Enchantress click here: http://scottandjudithpowell.wordpress.com/508-2/

Scott Powell and Judith Powell are husband and wife writing team. Their books include The Last Enchantress available on kindle and Rebel available this fall. Check them out on their blog here: http://scottandjudithpowell.wordpress.com/.