L.G. Estrella's Blog, page 35
November 30, 2020
How Abrupt Tonal Shifts Can Kill A Story
Every story has a certain tone to it. For some stories, the tone is dark. In other words, the world the characters inhabit is a grim place where bad things can and do happen to good people. Moral ambiguity and tough choices are common, and there are often no winners, so much as there are people who lose less. For other stories, the tone is light. Good things happen to good people. The heroes win, and the villains lose. Good triumphs over evil. I’m not here to argue about which tone is better. Th...
November 15, 2020
Progress Report 16-11-2020
Not good news this time, I’m afraid.
Due to various unanticipated reasons, The Sheep Dragon is being delayed. I had originally planned to have it out by the end of November, but that just doesn’t seem possible without massively rushing it, which is not something I am prepared to do. To quote Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Mario:
A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad
The same can also be said of books. I’d rather delay a bit and get it right than rush it and mess i...
November 12, 2020
Which Would You Find Scarier?
As some of you may have noticed, there is something of a trend in my fiction for animals with various skills and professions. In light of that, I’d like to know which you would find scarier:
Ninja rats
Raccoon wizards
Squirrel paladins
Owl assassins
Now, two of these four have already made appearances, and a third has been mentioned in passing. The remaining one might soon make an appearance too. Something that also sticks out to me is that the word order makes a big difference. Rat ninjas jus...
October 31, 2020
Happy Halloween!
Happy Halloween, everyone!
May you all have plenty of fun and candy!
Also, to celebrate Halloween, you can get my story, Two Necromancers, a Bureaucrat, and an Elf from Amazon for free today! Get it here. Enjoy!
October 27, 2020
Halloween Alliance
“What are you two doing?” Timmy asked.
Katie looked away from the table. She had a map of some sort thrown across it, and she and Spot were deep in conversation. “We’re planning the ultimate candy-gathering route.”
Spot nodded seriously. There’s free candy on Halloween. We need to get as much as we can.
“I’m not surprised to find out that you’re thinking with your stomach.” Timmy leaned over the table. “Is this the capital?”
“Yes.” Katie’s eyes narrowed ominously. “The capital will have more fre...
October 21, 2020
Failing Does Not Make You A Failure
People fail. It happens all the time, and it happens for all kinds of reasons. The easiest way to get demoralised by it is to think of failure as part of who you are instead of something you’ve done.
What do I mean by this? It’s about choosing how to view failing. There are actions that people perform and qualities that people have. Being tall is not an action you perform. Is a quality that you have. Likewise, having black hair is a quality you have, not an action you perform. You don’t have...
September 28, 2020
Genre and Length
One of the most common questions I get is about how long a novel should be. The answer, of course, is that a novel should be as long as it needs to be. If it takes you 70,000 words to tell the story, then that’s how long the novel should be. If it takes you 210,000 words to tell the story, then that’s how long the novel should be. That fairly trite answer aside, a factor you might want to take into account is what genre you’re writing in.
Simply put, different genres tend to have different appro...
September 16, 2020
The Importance Of Order In Short Story Collections #1
With work on The Sheep Dragon continuing, I thought it might be good to cover a topic that doesn’t really get a lot of attention. Short story collections aren’t as common now as they used to be. A big part of that is the downfall of genre magazines and serials that published the bulk of short stories in genres like horror, science fiction, and fantasy. That said, I’ve always been a fan of short story collections, and I enjoy writing them as well. Apart from just writing the short stories, one of...
September 2, 2020
Progress Report 03-09-2020
I’m back with another progress report. The elephant (dragon) in the room is The Sheep Dragon, the followup to The Hungry Dragon Cookie Company, which is a collection of short stories set alongside The Unconventional Heroes Series.
About a month and a half ago, the first draft was completed. It weighed in at 114,000 words. The second draft is now complete. It weighs in at a considerably heftier 181,000 words. I hope to have The Sheep Dragon released at some point in November, but I can’t make any...
August 25, 2020
Two Necromancers, a Dwarf Kingdom, and a Sky City is Now Available On Audible (Audiobook)!
Your two favourite necromancers return in their latest adventure in audiobook form! Two Necromancers, a Dwarf Kingdom, and a Sky City is now available on Audible! It turns part four of The Unconventional Heroes Series into twenty-one hours of function, action, and adventure!
Produced by Podium Audio and narrated by the wonderful Fred Berman, you can get it from Audible here. In case you aren’t familiar with the series, here is the blurb:
Two necromancers, a dwarf kingdom, and a sky city – it sou...
