Rani Divine's Blog, page 11

Leave it open

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m glad you stopped by. If you’ve picked up your copy of Anialych, I really hope you’re enjoying it—and if you haven’t, then I’ll pester you yet again and tell you to head over to www.rad-writing.com/store to order yours! You can also get it in digital on Kindle, Nook, and Kobo… but you’re better off getting it from RAD. Honestly. I’m not just saying that because I work there. If you get the digital copy at RAD, you’re getting a much better deal.
I’ve digressed.
All month long, we’ve been talking about writing a series of standalone novels. It’s a process, and a long and hard one. It’s not generally written (or released, for that matter) in chronological order—which makes it even more difficult to keep everything straight. Which is why I wanted to take a month to talk about it.
If you haven’t been around this month, I’d highly recommend scrolling through the posts from March and seeing everything we’ve discussed thus far. For the rest of you, let’s get right into it.
Don’t “finish” every story
Really, this is a pretty good general rule of thumb, no matter what kind of story you’re writing. Why? Because if you tie a neat little bow on the end of your story, you’ve prevented your reader from imagining how they think the story ends. Reading is about experiencing through imagination, so it’s best to allow your readers that chance at imagination—but that’s really not what we’re talking about today.
No, see, I want you to leave some loose ends in your books so they can be tied up in other books in the series.
Not big loose ends, mind you. Just little ones, questions that your readers might be wondering about along the way. Little things that maybe don’t quite make sense, additional characters who feel like they don’t need to be there (but will maybe play a larger role in another book down the line, perhaps).
These are all things that you, as a writer, should be thinking about in any case. You should be thinking of ways to connect your stories to one another. Endings are a great way to do that. Leave a little loose end in book one, and have the answer revealed offhandedly in book four. I’ve actually done this with a few things in the Druid Novels, many of them so subtle that casual readers might miss them, but I inserted them for the avid readers, those who like to piece everything together.
And that’s who I want you to cater for, when you do this.
It’s about the little things, the itty-bitty details that only your avid fans will really see. It’s about finding a way to connect those fans with the story as a whole. Give them little words and phrases here and there that connect the stories and tie up loose ends from other books. Mention what happened to characters in book two, with the characters in book five.
My one warning, when you’re doing this? Don’t do it in pure exposition. It can be a character thinking, or two characters talking, but if you're in book seven and you insert in pure exposition what really happened to Franklin at the end of book four in your series, you’re just coddling your audience. It’s okay to make them work for it, to let them use their imagination.
Besides, if it’s your characters tying those loose ends, it comes out much more naturally, from a reader’s perspective. 
[love]
{Rani Divine}

Proceed with caution

Hey everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by. If you’ve already started reading your copy of Anialych, I hope you’re enjoying it—it was really fun to write, even if it did take me a while longer than I’m used to. ;-)
All month long, as you know, we’re talking about what it takes to write a series of standalone novels. We’ve been discussing everything from your motivations behind writing a series of this nature to the reasons why we need to understand the ins and outs of the whole world before we get too deep into book two, and today, I have another fun topic for you.
Crossovers: Silent but Deadly
I cannot stress this enough, in writing your series of standalones. Use crossovers with caution, if you use them at all.
Why? Because it’s hard to keep your timeline perfectly straight, if you have a character who keeps popping up from book to book. Sure, we’ve talked about those big characters who get name-dropped from time to time in books they don’t belong in, but that’s not a full-fledged crossover. A crossover is where you’ll take a character from one book and insert them into another.
It’s only been done a few times in the Druid Novels, and the times you’ve seen so far are so small that they couldn’t do much damage.
See, crossovers are one of those things that innately draw attention to themselves. If a reader knows your story at all, they’ll be looking closely for those crossovers, to make sure everything lines up right. And it’s hard to get things perfect. It’s really hard to get things perfect.
Why? Because it’s nearly impossible to remember every single thing you’ve ever written, no matter how long you’ve been writing, no matter how many things you’ve written. Once those words go on the page, they leave your head. You probably won’t remember every one of them. and that’s what makes it really hard to make sure your crossovers actually work.
In the Druid Novels, my crossovers have only happened (to this point in releases, anyway) in epilogues and small non-pivotal scenes. They’ve been tiny scenes that won’t really make much bearing on the story as a whole, but simply inform other stories around them. Oh yeah, and I think most of them are contained within Cedwig, because Cedwig and Mynidd take place so close to one another, geographically.
Crossovers, because they innately draw so much attention to themselves, will also draw readers to any errors you have inside them. And I do mean any errors. You’ve got to get them perfect, or it just won’t work at all.
So before you write in a crossover, before you slide a character from book two into book five, ask yourself whether it’s entirely necessary. Ask yourself if you’re just getting fancy, and if this character really needs to be here. If the answer is yes, then proceed with caution. If the answer is no, then maybe just write the scene for yourself, knowing full well that it’ll never make it into the published version of the book.
Whatever you do… just proceed with caution. Trust me.
[love]
{Rani Divine}

It's here!!!

Hi everybody, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by today, of all days, because today…
It’s release day!!
Honestly, unless you’re a fellow writer, there’s probably no way for me to adequately describe how exciting a day like today really is. My baby, my beautiful book, is hitting shelves today. Today, it’s available for purchase on Amazon Kindle, BN Nook, Kobo, and on the RAD Writing website! It’s out in the world, it’s ready to be read and reviewed and explored by all the people who already have their hands on it.
I cannot wait to find out what you all think of my latest book.
Anialych: People of Sand
My family was among the first to leave the plains, to walk away from the horrors of humanity’s only home. With our parents gone, staying would’ve meant my brothers slowly losing their place in society, falling into the shadows.
We left with hope for a new and better life—but even our desert oasis isn’t without its dangers.
An army of the plains is coming for us. We always knew it would.
But something else exists out here, in the sand. Beings unlike any other. Now I must bring our peoples together before it’s too late—if only I can find the voice to do so.
For I am Delilah: the chosen one. 


We’ve been talking about this one for a while, haven’t we? It’s the chronological first in the series, the one that sets the stage for the rest of the Druid Novels, the one that’ll change the way you see every other book in the series.
It’s the only one of its kind, the only one where the druids aren’t what you’ve always known them to be. It’s the beginning, in every way. And it’s finally ready for you to pick it up and enter the adventure.
If you haven’t already, head over to www.RAD-Writing.com/Storeto order your copy, today!
[love]
{Rani Divine}

Just plain huge

Hi everybody, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by. As you know, all month long I’m using my Druid Novels to teach you a little bit about writing a series of standalone novels. It’s not something that’s for every writer, but it is something I think we should all know how to do, just in case.
Trust me, it wasn’t exactly what I was going for either, when I started Coetir.
Thus far, we’ve talked about getting your bearings, understanding why you’re writing a series of standalone novels instead of a traditional chronological series. We’ve discussed figuring out your world and your landscapes, prior to writing book 2. We’ve looked a little bit into making sure your timelines all line up, across every book in the series. And now, we have another big one—and a fun one.
Big, big characters
These are the characters who will have name-drops in books other than their own. Characters who have their own book, perhaps, but who are big enough that people all over your world know who they are or at least know them by reputation.
In the Druid Novels, I have a few of these—primarily, the witches. I could also make the claim that the Vartes is a character big enough to have leaked into every single story, but really, it’s more that the Vartes is a central character in all the stories. That’s not what we’re talking about today. We’re talking about those characters who do something so epic that they get name dropped in a book that has nothing to do with them.
My best example is Hythdor, from Mynidd: People of the Hills.
She’s my epic druid warrior, and probably my favorite druid character I’ve written. Well, maybe. She’s also so epic and headstrong that some of the other witches either mention her by name or consider her actions, when trying to decide how to proceed with their own people, their own situation.
Thing is, nobody really knows whether they should think of Hythdor in a good light or a bad one, and she’s totally okay with that. She knows her sisters are unsure how they feel about her actions, and in her mind, it doesn’t matter. She’s done what she thought best, and the others will make of it what they will. I think that’s part of what makes her one of those huge characters that seeps into story after story.
It’s a very important character type to include in your story, if only because it’ll just add another way to prove how united the story is as a whole—despite the fact that each book is a standalone story.
Whether your big, big character be an evil antagonist who everyone has to face in the end, a king who’s making decisions his people are unsure about, or a witch who will do whatever it takes to see her people’s success—it’s a character you’ll need, in your series of standalones.
Plus, you’ll feel really cool when you name-drop a character in a book they don’t belong to. It’ll make you wonder, just for a moment, what your readers will think when they see this little nod to the rest of your series.
As readers, that’s something we love to see. It means you’re paying attention to your own work, that you know what you’re doing, and that we can trust you to take us on this ride.
Have a great weekend, everyone—and remember, no matter how much you write each day, you’ll still end up with a book as long as you don’t stop writing.
[love]
{Rani Divine}

Time and time again

Hey everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by. As you know, all month long, we’re talking about writing a series of standalone novels—all in anticipation of the release of my latest novel, Anialych: People of Sand (did I mention that it comes out a week from today?!). Anialych is, after all, part of a series of standalones. It’s actually the first, chronologically, and the fifth, in order of release. Which is why I know what I’m talking about, when it comes to this kind of series.
Thus far, we’ve talked about setting your goals and understanding why you’re writing your series in this manner, rather than the traditional chronological setup, and we’ve talked a bit about making sure you have your world and your landscapes settled before you get too far into book two. Now, I have a hard one for you.
Timelines
This is probably actually the most difficult part, throughout the writing process. It’s the part that confines and restricts, but also helps in setting the tone for pretty much everything throughout the series.
Think of it this way:
Coetir: People of the Woods was the first book I released in the Druid Novels. It’s also the third book, chronologically. It takes place after both Anialych and Dwr. Oh, and there are a few characters from Coetir who will be back for the final book in the series.
What does that mean, by way of timelines?
Well, it means that Cedwig and Mynidd have to take place fairly soon after Coetir, otherwise my timeline will be muddled. See, those characters who need to come back from Coetirwill be joined by characters from each of the other books. If I don’t want my Coetir characters to be old and decrepit (which really wouldn’t make much sense for a story of this nature), then I need to make sure everything else is actually happening fairly soon after the events of Coetir, just to make sure my timeline matches up.
Those are the things you’ll have to think about, very closely, while you’re writing your series.
With every scene, every story, you need to know exactly whenit time this is taking place, in relation to the other stories in your series. I needed to know what was going on with Myniddwhile the events of Coetir played out. I had to know that. If I didn’t, Cedwigwouldn’t work properly.
And I know how much of a pain it can be, trying to keep everything straight when everything’s happening so far apart, in a physical sense. It seems almost like it shouldn’t matter, when everything is happening somewhere else in relation to what you’re writing now—but in the long run, your editor-brain will thank you if you heed my advice.
Figure out your timeline. Know it like the back of your hand. Ask yourself the hard questions, like why things have to happen now as opposed to a later date, or what bearing the actions of the characters in book 2 have against the characters in book 5. There will be ramifications of everything you write, upon every other book in the series—it just won’t happen the way you’re used to.
Breathe. You can do this.
Take lots of notes along the way, okay? Even if they seem like insignificant ones.
[love]
{Rani Divine}

Research = Fun

Hi guys, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by. All month long, as you’ll know if you’ve stopped in since Tuesday, is all about writing a series of standalone novels. It’s what I’ve done with the Druid Novels, and I know just how complicated it can be—even though there’s no direct tie-in from one book to the next, no characters that slip across from one book to the next.
If you haven’t read it yet, be sure to check out Tuesday’s post and get your foundations set up before we dive into the nitty-gritty.
Worlds vs. Landscapes
Using the Druid Novels as our primary example, the world would be that of Paradise, in which every druid story takes place. The landscapes are the particular areas where each story takes place (i.e. Coetir takes place in an island landscape, Cedwigin a jungle, but both are in the same world).
Before you start your series, you’ll want to have a pretty good idea of both your world and your landscapes.
Sure, you might not know right away, where your story is taking place. Sure, you might not have realized there was more to your precious standalone novel until you’d finished it (Coetir, anyone?), but that doesn’t change the fact. You need to understand your world, and you need to have a clear definition of your landscapes. (if you need help in creating a well-detailed map, check out Artifexian on YouTube). It takes a lot of time, a lot of attention to detail, but these are things you need to know—especially before you start book two.
In the case of the Druid Novels, I didn’t know it was a series at all, until a few months after I’d finished Coetir. No idea. I didn’t want it to be a series. But once I realized what it was, I knew I needed to get my world figured out before I went any further. I needed to know what my landscapes were, before I could write them.
Even if all you do is make a quick sketch on a napkin, of what your world looks like or what landscapes end where, you’ll be on the right track. These things can be refined during editing—but if you don’t at least have the basis in your head when you start book two, you’ll find yourself in a deep hole when you get to the editing phase.
See, what I always recommend when writing a standalone series, is similar to what I did with the druids. It’s a big, big world with lots of details and lots of information that can be seeped into the story from landscape to landscape—but each individual story will focus on one specific landscape, and how the characters there are faring with the change of the status quo (because if the status quo doesn’t change, you don’t really have a story, do you?). In particular, I'm thinking of the nature of evil in the world I've created. In Coetir, the people only really know of the Diafol. But in other stories, we discover Esforos, cythraul, and even tylwith-teg. That's all information that exists in the world as a whole, but could only be revealed in one landscape at a time—so that when we reach the end, you know exactly what's at stake. 
But if you didn’t do your homework, if you don’t have an idea of what the different lands are and who lives in them (just a basic idea, of course), your characters won’t be able to refer to them. This worked for the Druid Novels, in the case of Coetir. The islands are so separated from the rest of the world that the people there never thought about the plains, the cities they’d come from. But when it came to Cedwig, Dwr, Mynidd, and Anialych, the plains had to be mentioned. In fact, each of these four had to have some way of relating to each other. 
Your story will be no different—which is why you need to do your homework now, and get the big details out of the way before you get too far into the writing part.
Research is fun, remember?
[love]
{Rani Divine}

The how-to of standalone series'

Hi guys, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m glad you stopped by. Last week, we finished up our series on all things love, and honestly, part of me didn’t want to let it go. I loved that series (get it?). But, every month always marks the start of a new series, and I have a really fun one for this month.
Creating a Series of Standalones
As you all know, or should know if you’ve been following me for any length of time, my current novel series is written this way. It’s a fantasy series, but each book is so individual that you don’t need to read them in any given order—at least, until the last book comes around, but we haven’t gotten there yet.
It’s not an easy thing to do when it comes to novel writing, so I thought I’d give it some attention this month. March also just so happens to be the month in which Anialych: People of Sand will be released, so it seemed fitting.
All month long, I’ll be giving you my tips and tricks to writing a series of this nature, a series of standalone novels that will still draw your readers into the pages and have them begging for more.
Today, I have a few questions I want you to answer, or at least ponder, before we get into the meat of the matter:

Why not write a normal book series? What is it that draws you to writing standalones?

These are questions you’ll need to answer before you start working on your series. You need to at least have some idea of what you want to get from writing this series. After all, the whole point of writing is to create something transformational—if youdon’t transform while writing it, then your readers can’t transform while reading it. So, tell me, why wouldn’t you write a normal book series?
For me, it was a question of timing. I’d been working on a “normal” series, a chronological series, in which every book relied on the one before it—and it was giving me a headache. I needed a breath of fresh air, a change that would allow me to clear my head and really think through my individual stories while still being able to mention things from the big picture. That’s why I didn’t even try to connect Cedwig with Coetir, while I was writing. All I wanted was for the stories to take place in the same world, without being so dependent on each other that I’d need to do a more rapid style of releasing them.
That’s also what draws me to reading standalones, incidentally. I don’t always want to read books that are entirely dependent on one another. Sometimes I want there to be finished stories, every time, but with a bigger picture that I can just start to see forming on the horizon.
But those are just my answers, from when I started the Druid Novels. Those were the things that pointed me in the right direction. And before you start writing your standalone series, those are things you should think about, too.
Thursday, we’ll start on our journey into the fun part.
[love]
{Rani Divine}

Where do we go from here?

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m glad you stopped by. Today, as you likely know, is the last day in our series on love. It’s the one where we bring it all together, the one where we tie everything up in a package with a neat little bow on top, so we’ll all know where to go from here.
This month, we’ve talked about many different kinds of love: three positive ones and three negative. We’ve discussed romantic love, the love between siblings, and the impenetrable bond that forms between blood brothers. We’ve talked about lust between characters who don’t belong together, desire between a character and the thing they covet, and fear, the absence of love in its entirety. And now, let’s figure out how we use this information in our writing.
Love, in Story
I talk about this a lot, but I want to mention it once more, here: 
If you want to be a good writer, you need to make a habit of studying people. 
You need to know what makes them tick, what goes through their minds, what emotions they’re feeling and why—every little thing that might matter to your characters, you need to have at least a small understanding of it. It’s not enough to just use your own personal experiences. Some of your characters have lived through things you can’t possibly understand. Some of them understand things you don’t. And that’s what makes it important for you to make a study of things like love, so you’ll know how and why it works in relation to your characters.
In story, it’s usually best to blend a few of the different forms of love, in order to round out your story more fully. Remember, most people experience all six types of love we’ve talked about this month. But, I’d suggest choosing one or two to be the main focus of a single story.
Let’s consider a story we should all know pretty well (and if you don’t, then I think I might have to take away your writer card, sorry): The Lord of the Rings. Yeah, there’s a reason why I always refer to Tolkien, when I’m talking about story tenants. It’s because everyone knows Tolkien, I can refer to characters without having to fully describe who they are, and because the writing is solid, even today.
Within LOTR, we see each of the different forms of love, and each one propels the story forward in a different way. We see romantic love between Arwen and Aragorn, sibling love between the hobbits, blood brothers in Gimli and Legolas, lust (albeit mildly) between Eowyn and Aragon, desire for the Ring from Gollum (among others, like Boromir), and fear intermingles through it all.
In this case, the strongest loves Tolkien focuses on are those of fear and of blood brothers. The Fellowship is created out of companions who now declare themselves loyal to one another, to whatever end. They are brothers now, by blood, a stronger bond than even their own family. Fear weaves through every part of the story, as each character struggles to face the loss of the life they knew, the love they’d lived in prior to the story’s beginning. For the hobbits, this fear is especially strong. Mordor had not reached the Shire, when the story began. They knew nothing of this kind of fear, before leaving their home.
See what I mean? While each of the six forms of love is required to push the story forward, to round it out and make it the epic saga we all know it to be, two forms of love are the ones to push it to its pinnacle.
And that’s how our writing should be. That’s how you take love and turn it into a story that no one would think of as a love story—though when you break it down, The Lord of the Rings is one of the greatest love stories ever written.
There’s a reason why I got a Lord of the Rings tattoo.
[love]
{Rani Divine}

Trembling

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m glad you stopped by. This, as you well know (or should know, if you’ve looked at a calendar recently), is the last week of February—and therefore, the last week in our series on love. I’m both relieved and sad, because I’ve had a lot of fun with this series, but I’m looking forward to finding out what comes next. Haven’t quite nailed down next month’s theme yet. ;-)
All month long, we’ve been talking about the many shapes love takes in story. We’ve talked romantic love, sibling love, the love between friends, and negative twists on the subject, like lust and desire. Today, I give you the last negative twist on love, before Thursday’s discussion on how to use these forms of love in your writing.
This one, I’m willing to bet, you’ve never thought of as a twist on love. But, that’s because it’s technically the opposite of love.
Fear
I know, I know, some of you will say that hate is the opposite of love, but you would be wrong. Anger is the opposite of happiness, joy is the opposite of hate, and fear, well, fear is the opposite of love. It’s the lack of love, and it makes for a very interesting story.
I think it’s safe to say that fear rears its head in every story ever told. There always has to be something to fear, something to dread, something that’s the opposite of love. We’re so used to it, we probably didn’t all realize that it was going on. Fear is developed through tension, which we all know is something writers have to amplify in their work, in order to keep readers’ attention.
In story, fear takes shape when a character is without love, when they desire love. Fear takes place when love is stolen, when love vanishes from a character’s mind. Starting to see it now?
Think of Narnia. Everything’s hunky dory in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, until Edmond goes missing. Everything’s alight with joy and wonder and a newfound love for this world the children have discovered (edged with other emotions, of course), but upon their brother’s disappearance, that love is stolen away, leaving room for little but fear. The children are afraid now. What can they possibly do, to rescue their brother? How can they survive this harsh new world? Suddenly everything beautiful and wonderful seems strange and unfamiliar, suddenly everything seems dangerous. Fearful. All because that love was stolen from them.
That’s what makes fear such a powerful thing to play with, in story. It’s the absence of the thing we’re all looking for, the lack of that emotion everyone wants to feel. It’s life without love, which many people can’t even imagine ever feeling—and it draws readers in, in the hope that these characters will find their love again, will learn to live beyond this fear.
And that’s why it’s a shape of love that we should never stop writing. People love to read about love, yes, but one of the best ways to write about love is for our characters to experience an absence of it. Once our characters know what it is to live without love, to live only in fear—and once our readers experience that life along with them—it makes the finding of love all that much more poignant.
Everyone knows what it is to fear. Everyone knows what it is to love.
Our stories benefit from remembering that, and from using it in any way we can.
[love]
{Rani Divine}

Unending Want

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m glad you stopped by. It’s been a fun month of learning about love, and I hope our last three topics will be as much fun for you as they’ve been for me. I love writing about love, in its many shapes and forms.
This week, as you’ll know if you’ve been with us for a bit, we’re talking about some of the negative spins on love. Loves that shouldn’t be. Loves that aren’t as pretty and happy and wonderful as the ones we talked about earlier in the month. Loves that you might not even think of as loves, if we’re being honest.
Today?
Desire
This is a kind of love that bothers me, in story, and yet it’s also one that I’m fond of reading from time to time. It can be negative or positive, but it’s always fairly unique to the story being told. At least, in the times I’ve read it.
Where lust is a love between two characters who should not be together, desire is a love between a single character and a thing.
Yep, this time we’re talking about a one-sided love, in that it’s a love between one thing capable of loving and one thing incapable of it. Think Han Solo and the Falcon. He loves that ship, but that ship is in no way capable of loving him back.
That’s a positive spin on it, however. It can also go badly.
Think of Gollum and the One Ring. Gollum loved that ring, to the point that he was willing to kill literally anyone to make sure the ring was his and his alone. His desire for that ring burned through every last bit of his former self, until he forgot what he’d once been.
That’s the power of desire, in story. Desire will get a character the thing they want (maybe), but it doesn’t always work out the way they want. It’s the kind of love that longs and yearns and is willing to break the rules to get its way. And it’s a kind of love that I highly recommend writing (as I have with all of them, really). Why? Because it's a love that exists in life, a love that compels, a love that draws intrigue and interest to itself.
Desire is one of those things that will take over a story, if we’re not careful with it. It can take the entirety of a character’s mind and twist it into something new, and it can do it when you’re not paying attention, to the point that you won’t even notice it happened. That’s how powerful desire can be, if it’s well written. Because of that, it can take extremely powerful positive or negative twists. It's hard to say which one will come out on top until you get a good deal of the way through the writing.
And that’s why it can be really fun to read—but also really annoying, when it gets that negative spin.
Next week, we’ll talk about the big one. The final negative twist on love. The twist you’ve probably never thought of before.
[love]
{Rani Divine}