Deby Fredericks's Blog, page 23

Pronoun, Pronounced

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about some complexity I was encountering with a character’s pronouns in my latest short story. The character is a cloud elemental, neither male nor female nor even necessarily appearing human. The standard he/she pronouns didn’t seem to fit.

Several of you kindly answered my plea for advice, so here’s what I decided. It’s an experiment for me to write a character like this, so I looked into alternative pronouns. There are more than you think! Em/er, ze/zer, te/ter, xe/xer… But ae/aer, also written fae/faer, seemed appropriate for a magical being.

Plus, aer would be pronounced just like “air” and how could I resist such a pun? So I’m hoping in the near future to be telling you about Vayle and aer adventures when the antholoy I’m writing it for is published.

By the way, the anthology is “Midnight Menagerie,” with stories set in circuses and carnivals. Submissions open on January 1, 2024. Here are the guidelines if you’re interested.

Have you read one of my books? Then it would be great for you to leave a review! Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about me and my work, check out my website, Facebook and Instagram.

New Sale!

That’s right, I just got the contracts back from Wolfsinger. They’re picking up The Eighth Order, sequel to my recently re-issued The Seven Exalted Orders. It seems like there’s going to be an audio book of it, too.

I don’t have much more information right now, but that’s exciting enough for me!

Have you read one of my books? Then it would be great for you to leave a review! Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about me and my work, check out my website, Facebook and Instagram.

The Tale of the Drakanox

…It’s up for pre-orders on Books2 Read as of now, and will shortly be up on Amazon as well.

Books 2 Read has the epub and pdf formats. Sales are available from a number of major e-booksellers, including Apple, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords and Kobo. Follow the link to see if your favorite e-bookseller is linked to them. Amazon will of course have the Kindle and paperback formats. Watch this space for updated purchase links.

The Tale of the Drakanox

It was just an old story. There couldn’t really be a lost civilization based on trust and equality. Not when the Wizard-King Dar-Gothull rules Skaythe through cruelty and terror. 

But when Ar-Thea told the story of the Shining Ones to her six magelings, the legend took root in their hearts. For years, they traveled the land as Minstrels. Through stories and song, they offered light and hope in dark times. Now their secrets have been laid bare. The Minstrels flee as the regime gathers its forces to crush them. 

Yet there is hope. Deep in the cursed Hornwood, there is an incredible power that only the Minstrels can use. It is guarded by a terrible beast — the Drakanox! The Minstrels must call on every ally and avoid every enemy if they hope to recover what has long been lost.

Intrigued? Good! Pre-Order it from Amazon or Books2Read!

Have you read one of my books? Then it would be great for you to leave a review! Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about me and my work, check out my website, Facebook and Instagram.

Moving Ahead… Wait…

November is coming soon. That is the month I’ve been planning to publish The Tale of the Drakanox. I’ve even taken the first steps by creating the master document that I’ll use for uploading. The ISBN numbers for different formats have been assigned, too.

Beginning the process forced me to confront a nagging problem. After I had finished the main story, I decided to add the “Before” section that showed how Ar-Thea started her magelings on their journey to become Minstrels — the title characters of the whole series. I then wanted an “After” section to balance “Before.” The last ten pages had been sort of oddly hung off the end, so I called them “After” instead of Chapter 22.

This always bugged me, though. The “After” section didn’t function in the same way as “Before.” Probably nobody but me would have noticed it, but like I said, it bugged me. So I’ve paused publication long enough to re-write “After.” Instead of discussing all the challenges ahead of the Minstrels, it jumps the timeline forward a year and shows how they are beginning to bring about their hopes for peace.

Finishing this will take me another day or two, and then I expect to get back to publishing. Here’s hoping!

Have you read one of my books? Then it would be great for you to leave a review! Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about me and my work, check out my website, Facebook and Instagram.

Bad Moon Rising

Today’s the day! I have an interview up on Teri Polen’s blog for her Bad Moon Rising book event. This time I’m featuring Prisoners of the Wailing Tower, the fifth Minstrels of Skaythe novella. It’s a direct predecessor to the one I’m the midst of setting up to self-publish, The Tale of the Drakanox. I hope you’ll take a look!

Have you read one of my books? Then it would be great for you to leave a review! Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about me and my work, check out my website, Facebook and Instagram.

Pronoun Problem

Today I promise you relief from my long rambles about a video game. I’m focused on a much smaller problem.

The latest story has been slow to get started. The main character is an air elemental who appears in the form of a cloud. A sorcerer who runs a circus has it displayed in a glass globe in their sideshow. Since the character is trapped there, everything else in the story has to happen in the sideshow, where Vayle can witness it. That might be one thing that was holding me back. I think I have that part solved.

However, the smaller, detailed problem is the elemental’s pronouns. Vayle is neither male nor female. In fact, it doesn’t have to look human at all. What is the pronoun for such a being? “It/its” sounds more like an object than a thinking being. “They/them” would be the standard usage, but it could get confusing. When interacting with a bunch of carnies, will “they” (the carnies) let “them” (Vayle) out of the globe?

With either choice, sentences get complicated. Using Vayle’s name in every mention would also be repetitive. This gives me a lot of awkward paragraphs to try and finagle. Maybe I’ll research some of the other genders that have been suggested around the Internet. They just can’t sound too contemporary for my fantasy story.

Sure, it’s a challenge I gave myself when I decided to write about a non-gendered being. I’m interested in your thoughts, though. What pronouns would you use for a character like Vayle?

Have you read one of my books? Then it would be great for you to leave a review! Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about me and my work, check out my website, Facebook and Instagram.

Diablo IV, Part 2

Last time, I talked about how much I enjoy the writing in the video game Diablo IV. This time, I’ll get more into general gameplay. The designers of this game paid a lot of attention to the player experience, and they put in a lot of fun touches.

For instance, the world map is very large. There are new places to visit, but we also get to revisit settings from some of the other games. Old characters show up, or are mentioned as part of history. Players who have been through the previous games will find those mentions entertaining.

Character customization is another big update. Players in video games always want to customize their characters. Previous Diablo games didn’t allow this. Each character class had a single character image. In Diablo III you could decide to be male or female, and that was it. For Diablo IV we get full customization of hair, skin tone, body type, scars/tattoos, and more. That is an important expectation for video games.

Clothing has been another issue for players. You find a ton of weapons and armor in these games, and when you put them on, it changes the character’s appearance. However, there was no way to customize those items. You could end up with ugly color combinations or ridiculous weapons that, while having the best stats, didn’t fit how you imagined your character. In Diablo III you could buy dyes to change your equipment’s color, but that was it.

Here, you can salvage excess gear at a blacksmith and it will save the “look” of arms and armor. You then can go to an armoire and select from the looks to make your character appear the way you want it to. It’s a bit like paper dolls, which isn’t something I thought I would ever enjoy in a video game. But I use the armoire quite a lot. When my character is in snowy mountains, I give her fur-lined armor. When she’s in the desert, I put her in lighter fabrics. To me, it makes the game more immersive.

One of the most notorious aspects of costuming in games has been the “magical armor” the women are shown in, while men are fully clothed. In this game you can have both men and women in “magical armor.” All’s fair in love and war and Diablo IV.

Another improvement for players in this game is the ease of fast travel. Diablo games always had teleportation scrolls to get back to town quickly, although you had to buy them. There were also town portals for moving from place to place. In this game, the scrolls are free and unlimited. You can also ride horses across country. Horses are a big thing in video games these days. Previously you had to run everywhere, and be attacked by every creature along the way. With horses, you can ride by most of them. You can also pin locations on the game’s map to find new places more easily. These changes make it much more convenient to move around the map, and that’s a welcome improvement.

What these details have in common is a mindfulness of the player’s experience in the game. That is something we can bring to our writing. Not exactly in the customizing; readers aren’t going to change a written character’s appearance on the fly. But as writers we can keep genre expectations in mind. We can consider the competition for a reader’s attention, and make our stories more fun to read. That might mean injecting a bit of humor, or it might mean creating more interesting settings with attention to the world building.

Have you read one of my books? Then it would be great for you to leave a review! Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about me and my work, check out my website, Facebook and Instagram.

Diablo IV

It may seem odd that someone who writes about pacifist mages and alternatives to violence would be enjoying an adventure role-player like Diablo IV. The game is violent and dark in the way that’s typical for video games. So I’ll be talking about what works for me in this video game, and how that can translate into written arts.

One factor is that the writers did a great job that went beyond the main narrative. This game is #4 in a series, and the plot follows the pattern of its predecessors. Your hero character pursues a demonic villain and is always one step behind. There is a small group of two to three companions who work with you. The writers here paid attention to the companions, and it paid off.

Companion relationships are an important part of these games. In Diablo III, they tried to bring in that kind of relationship with the Templar, Sorceress and Rogue companions. It was a valiant attempt, but it fell flat. Here in Diablo IV, they really got it right. Lorath, Neyrelle and Donan each have a complete narrative arc that is part of the main plot. Without these three, and to a lesser extent Taissa and Yorin, the story would fall apart.

The writers also did more with the infamous side quests. Some of them are typical “escort a lost person” or “go get ten animal hides.” However, in many cases that is just the beginning. Minor quests go in a chain that builds toward a complete mini-story within the larger narrative. They are optional, but after you go through a heavy battle, it can be welcome to follow a minor quest line.

Speaking of heavy… The game writers wrote some powerful emotional material. Unlike in Diablo III where the gut punches felt arbitrary, here it feels organic to the plot. Overlaying the typical race to save the world is a recurring theme of parents and children. Parents try to protect their children. Children try to save their parents from mistakes. Parents reject their children. Children are cut down and parents left to mourn.

This speaks to me so much of the COVID experience. Families were tangled up by it all. We tried to convince someone to get vaccinated — or not — and later watched them die — or develop Long Covid. Or not get sick at all, while others suffered. We were thrown out of work and spent more time together in a way that strengthened our bonds — or destroyed them. Authorities we looked to told us lies — or they fumbled the response. A vaccine was developed with amazing speed — and was undercut by conspiracy theories.

The writing of Diablo IV expresses so much of this. Taken together with the character work, this game feels like a big, thick, epic fantasy novel. I find it rewarding to play.

The lessons I draw here are two: First, pay attention to even the minor characters. Their mini-arcs build a more satisfying narrative. Second, don’t shy away from emotional depth. Stay aware of events in the world, and don’t be afraid to reflect them in your story.

Next time, I’ll get more into the gameplay experience.

Have you read one of my books? Then it would be great for you to leave a review! Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about me and my work, check out my website, Facebook, Instagram and/or CounterSocial.

Woman at Work, October 2023

What’s Happening? My energy has felt quite scattered lately. I have two important projects going on simultaneously, and it’s been way too long since I created any new words. Guess I need to take care of these more quickly so I can do that.

What I’m Working On. Edits are coming back from the proofreader on The Tale of the Drakanox. I’ve been working through those. Soon I can begin setting up for publication next month. Bansai!

What’s Next? Two anthologies are in the offing. First, I have to go over the publisher’s proof on The Dragon’s Hoard. Next, I’ll put on my editor hat to finalize the stories and sequence on Wee Folk and Wise. Both anthologies were published by Sky Warrior Books, and are now being re-issued by Wolfsinger.

Where I’ll be. Some events are coming up in October and November. First will be a “book list” on Book Shepherd. They asked about the three books I loved most in 2023, so I wrote that up for them. I also have my favorite blog visit, Bad Moon Rising, on Teri Polen’s blog. I’ll put up links when those go live. Later on, in November, is Fall Folk Festival, where I’ll read from my folk-inspired short fiction.

Fun and Games. Currently I’m playing Diablo IV. There are five possible character classes, and I like to try them all, even if the story is the same. The game writing continues to impress me. I really should blog about that.

Happy fall! Not everyone enjoys the colder, shorter days, but for me there are good things in every season. I hope you can find something nice around you.

Have you read one of my books? Then it would be great for you to leave a review! Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about me and my work, check out my website, Facebook, Instagram and/or CounterSocial.

Woman at Work, Octoer 2023

What’s Happening? My energy has felt quite scattered lately. I have two important projects going on simultaneously, and it’s been way too long since I created any new words. Guess I need to take care of these more quickly so I can do that.

What I’m Working On. Edits are coming back from the proofreader on The Tale of the Drakanox. I’ve been working through those. Soon I can begin setting up for publication next month. Bansai!

What’s Next? Two anthologies are in the offing. First, I have to go over the publisher’s proof on The Dragon’s Hoard. Next, I’ll put on my editor hat to finalize the stories and sequence on Wee Folk and Wise. Both anthologies were published by Sky Warrior Books, and are now being re-issued by Wolfsinger.

Where I’ll be. Some events are coming up in October and November. First will be a “book list” on Book Shepherd. They asked about the three books I loved most in 2023, so I wrote that up for them. I also have my favorite blog visit, Bad Moon Rising, on Teri Polen’s blog. I’ll put up links when those go live. Later on, in November, is Fall Folk Festival, where I’ll read from my folk-inspired short fiction.

Fun and Games. Currently I’m playing Diablo IV. There are five possible character classes, and I like to try them all, even if the story is the same. The game writing continues to impress me. I really should blog about that.

Happy fall! Not everyone enjoys the colder, shorter days, but for me there are good things in every season. I hope you can find something nice around you.

Have you read one of my books? Then it would be great for you to leave a review! Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about me and my work, check out my website, Facebook, Instagram and/or CounterSocial.