Kelley Armstrong's Blog, page 151
November 11, 2013
Seven Secrets Project
I’m about to post my 2014/2015 release schedule and there’s a book on there that I haven’t mentioned before, so this is me, mentioning it :)
I was asked to write a book for a new collaborative project headed by Canadian authors Eric Walters and Teresa Totem. Eric did a project last year called Seven, which you can find here. The premise for that was “a grandfather dies and leaves each of his seven grandsons something that sends them on an adventure.” Seven authors took a grandson and each wrote a book. This new project is called “Seven Secrets” and follows the premise “Seven girls in an orphanage in 1964 are each given a clue to their past that sends them on an adventure.” The seven authors are Eric Walters, Teresa Toten, Marthe Jocelyn, Vicki Grant, Kathy Kacer, Eric Walters, Norah McClintock …and me.
My book is subtitled “Tess’s Secret” and that’s what it’s called on my release schedule. My girl’s adventure takes her to Quebec, which was a very interesting time to be in 1964, in the midst of the Quiet Revolution. I had a blast researching this one. It’s my most “Canadian” project, and I’m very pleased about that. I tend to tone down the local content for an international audience, but this is a Canadian project with a Canadian publisher, so I took advantage of that.
Although this is a joint project, the book is my own, from premise to character to execution. All authors were given complete freedom there, including the freedom to add any elements they wanted, so mine has a supernatural twist.
Tess’s Secret (which will have a real title at some point!) comes out fall 2015, which is why I haven’t mentioned it. But it’s on the official schedule now.
I saw a promo for mini episodes of Bitten. Is this real? Or is this fanmade?
Bumping this up in the queue because I’ve gotten asked it a lot lately. It’s for the TV show, but not an official trailer that I’m allowed to share. Apparently it was done for the sales or distribution team or something like that, and it leaked from their site. If anyone wants to see it, Google. I’m supposed to wait for an official version. Sorry!
a majestic stealthy cold blooded killer
a majestic stealthy cold blooded killer
November 8, 2013
When you're developing your characters, what do you do to make them more believable? And how do you make them all unique? I feel like most of my characters are flat, or else are all very similar.
So characters…I can talk for a very long time on character development, because it’s just as important as plot and even, I might argue, more so.
The most basic piece of advice I can give is “Know Thy Characters.” Know them as well as you’d know a good friend. Of everything you know about a character, only about 10% should appear in any given book, meaning you know 10x more than you need to for the purpose of the story. That’s what makes them believable and unique. They have a past, a present and a future, hopes and dreams and fears, and even if those are never mentioned outright in the story, they will shape your character and his/her actions.
November 4, 2013
We know of at least two witch-sorcerer children, both female. Is this just coincidence or because their mothers were witches? Are they able to have witch-sorcerer children of both sexes?
Good question! Gender determination comes from the father. Mom always contributes an X (it’s all she’s got) and Dad contributes either X or Y. So it should seem that it would depend on the father, meaning if a sorcerer’s kid is always male, a mix would also be male. Except, obviously, that doesn’t work biologically, because Dad can’t be YY. So what determines that sorcerers always father boys and witches always have girls? Some quirk of biology—either he always contributes Y or she always “blocks” Y…which, yeah, isn’t possible, so the explanation is “magic” biology :)
And if it’s “magic” then I can decide whether hybrids are always female or we just have two examples where it happened that way. My theory is that they’re always female, because if a witch had a hybrid who was a daughter, she could hide the fact she’d been messing around with a sorcerer. If a witch had a son, that would be noticed and there’d be some record of it, which Paige has never found.
dragonsigma:
slavicinferno:
“I heard police or ambulancemen,...
“I heard police or ambulancemen, standing in our house, say, “She must have provoked him,” or, “Mrs Stewart, it takes two to make a fight.” They had no idea. The truth is my mother did nothing to deserve the violence she endured. She did not provoke my father, and even if she had, violence is an unacceptable way of dealing with conflict. Violence is a choice a man makes and he alone is responsible for it.”
-Patrick Stewart
No but there’s this one interview where he says basically “People won’t listen to you or take you seriously unless you’re an old white man, and since I’m an old white man I’m going to use that to help the people who need it”
This guy is amazing.
November 1, 2013
Freebie Friday - Nov 1
My UK final copies of Wild Justice arrived early! So while my books are still in storage, I have something to give away this week.
Prize: UK trade paperback of Wild Justice, 2 to be awarded
How to enter: email contest@kelleyarmstrong.com and answer the question “Which series is Wild Justice part of?” Considering I’ve been ending and starting new series for the last year, that might not be as easy to answer as it should be :)
Two entries will be randomly drawn from all correct responses received.
Deadline: midnight Eastern today (Friday, November 1) Not sure what that is in your time zone? Check here.
My contests are always open to everyone, everywhere. One entry per person.
Winners are contact by email. Alison send me the names after hearing back, and I sometimes remember to post them here ;)
I love your books and have read them all. My question is do you have any more book coming out plan on to do with any of the people from otherword series?
For now, I’m continuing with my annual Otherworld Subterranean novellas. Brazen (Nick) is this year’s and an Elena one is up for next year. Beyond that, I haven’t decided what I’ll do.
howstuffworks:
6 of the Scariest Abandoned Mental Asylums in...
6 of the Scariest Abandoned Mental Asylums in America
There are abandoned mental hospitals across the U.S. and horror took place in all of them. Here are six of the scariest of them all. See the whole gallery at Stuff You Should Know.
