Author Archives: Seriah Black Sheep

Inside of Bre

Posted by Seriah Black Sheep on

A growing concern in my mind over the years has been the increasing sense that Labriella, the semi-normal-perspectived main character, is a flat character. Most of that stemmed from having little to no interest in her. In the beginning, turning from a Damsel in Distress into a Damsel with a Kick was the main point of Bre’s origins and tendencies. Basically, she existed to show off Rome, and she was built to want to show off Rome.

But as any of my readers would readily tell you, Rome is not the type of guy to love a dunce just because she was there. Especially when she is the reason he hit rock-bottom for the second time in his long life, Rome would be more prone to kick the girl to the curb definitively than to wishy-wash back and forth with uncontrollable emotion over her exit. The magnitude of this is seen not only in Rome’s dealings with shopkeepers and employees, and with nobles, but also with the nobles’ showcases. A remote attraction to Kitiora can only be true if she has a brain, and the balls to kick him in them.

And yes, if you haven’t noticed, Bre’s concern over that last bit is grounded in reality, not jealous paranoia.

So, what is an author to do with a heroine who exists to be as unobtrusive to and un-hated by female readers as possible?

The first major recognition is that Bre lives in a world outside of my area of expertise. I do have professional ties to the medical world and service experience through prior employment. I know masseuses, nurses, and mushroom hunters. I now live in a wooded area. I grew up in a conservative religious culture. I have a family member who beat cancer post-surgery through homeopathic supplements and dietary changes. I have another family member who made burn cream in her backyard. But what do I really know about binding wounds, tinctures and tonics, poultices, and poisons? What about those “long-lost” apothecary skills? What about herbal remedies that aren’t attached to witchcraft?

Throughout (or despite, or because of) my long college career, I gradually found the opportunity to study some of these things: CPR, Wilderness First Aid, mushrooms and poisons books through inter-library loan and a co-worker, and tonics and tinctures through another co-worker, plus pheromonal experimental study results as they relate to psychology.

Today, I add to that study through a couple preliminary classes on Udemy about massage and herbs.

The amount of behind-the-scenes research we conduct, even as Fantasy or Romance authors, is amazing. Just because we can create our own world from scratch, doesn’t mean we aren’t cobbling together actual starting matter based on real-world principles.

Court of Thorny Roses: The Huntress and the Shiny Fey Shifter

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A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1)A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

My Summary:
Feyre and her family are about to starve to death if she can’t find food. But killing that food means taking it from another predator, which has regrettable consequences. The next thing Feyre knows, she’s being dragged across the fey border for killing a faerie, leaving her family behind to starve. The power of the faerie whose subordinate she killed cannot quite make up for his social awkwardness. Tamlin has good reason to be awkward, however. Trapped in a mask from a masquerade ball gone wrong and stuck somewhere between defending his borders and sending his subordinates to their deaths, he seems to need help but refuses to be forthcoming with the information. Tamlin is fine, Tamlin is strong, Tamlin is going to save the day…until Tamlin needs saving, because Feyre failed to realize she’s the heroine and left him to deal with an old acquaintance he can’t win against. If the ever-stoic, survival-mode Feyre can’t put a name and actions to her feelings in time, it’s Game Over for everyone—humans included. Even if she does succeed, there’s no guarantee she’ll live.

This is a High Fantasy Romance that takes place on topography likened to the British Isle: heavy on the Fantasy and heavy on the Romance. It’s upper YA, but don’t think that’s going to get you out of gore and sex (though there are a lot of breaks in between). There’s also a near-rape scene, some brainwashing into doing adult things, drinking, and some gruesome stuff at the end. If you liked Hunger Games or Kate Daniels, you’ll be fine. It’s nowhere near Game of Thrones TV level.

My Thoughts:
If you are familiar with the original Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, you will recognize the original setup: girl lives with her father and sisters in a shack, father went broke when his merchant vessels went missing at sea, sisters are frivolous, girl or her father accidentally wrongs beast and beast demands her as payment, father doesn’t want to give her up as payment but she goes anyway. None of that should be a spoiler. What makes Beauty different is that she’s a scrawny, starving artist-turned-hunter who won’t go down without a fight, and she hates her family but protects them anyway.

From there, it starts to go all Fantasy genre on you. It’s a classic case of the fey stealing away a human and most fey considering them gullible food—and faeries, famous for their cruelty, play with their food. Throwback to Julie Kagawa’s The Iron Fey series: once you cross that gateway into the faerie realm, there’s no undoing what you see and experience. If you loved The Iron King, you’re going to feel nostalgic. Especially if you were rooting for Ash and Puck the whole way through and couldn’t decide between them.

I picked up this book because it came highly recommended to me from both strangers and friends. I’m a sucker for the Beauty and the Beast trope, but I’m also a stickler for uniqueness. That conflicted me a bit over this retelling.

S.J. Maas was a master of crafting suspense in this book. Not only that, I was biased against the book after reading Throne of Glass, and she overcame that bias by leaps and bounds. I read this entire book in one day. I, who am so picky that I rarely finish a book anymore.

That being said, I had two frustrations and one confusion about this story. One frustration was I could not connect to Tamlin—and he was the male lead, and eventually the “damsel in distress,” so that was really important. I must be really visually dependent (as far as visualizing in my mind) to have had this much trouble with picturing Tamlin’s appearance around a mask. There were allusions to his facial structure, but way more time was spent on his claws than on what his face might look like underneath. Granted, Feyre (the main character) did express need to know what he looked like, the longer she was around him, and even spent some intermittent paragraphs musing over what it would be like to see his face. But the only time I felt the giant blur that was his face (which made him feel impersonal) was overcome was at the pool of starlight. The rest of the time, I felt closer to Lucien than I did to Tamlin. While I realize that was somewhat by design, it actually had me rooting for a relationship with Lucien rather than Tamlin, which was counterproductive.

The confusion part came from Tamlin’s name. I spent half the book trying to figure out why his name sounded so familiar. Turns out I was thinking of the female Tamsin in the fey TV series Lost Girl. My bad. To Maas’ credit, the name Tamlin really does suit him.

The second frustration was getting almost zero info drops. I kept waiting to find out more about the regular plot, but learned more about the romance instead. As a Fantasy-Romance cross-genre writer myself, I well appreciate the romantic plot arc and the regular plot arc being inseparable; one cannot exist without the other, or the story would fall apart. But because most of what was revealed were the classic Beauty and the Beast storyline and the extent of Tamlin’s shapeshifting capabilities (full-body and partial-transformation), the main character and I were both left completely in the dark as to what was going on until it was time to go save Tamlin. I knew dark things were happening behind the scenes, but I had NO IDEA about what was truly going on. It would have been nice to feel like Tamlin was at least trying to help Feyre guess. If I hadn’t been gifted such a spectacular breakup sex scene right about the time I was getting mega frustrated, I don’t know if I would have finished the book. Kudos to Maas for the perfect timing, delivering on long-built sexual tension throughout the story.

The end, I admit, is a little troubling. It’s a great finale, and a great ending, make no mistake. I was riveted the whole way through the ending sequence. I just don’t know how I feel about Feyre’s aftermath.

Consensus:
It’s obvious why this book came highly recommended, and I recommend it as well. It bridges well that gap between just-out-of-high-school Young Adult and adult Fantasy, so well that I’m surprised it’s not openly classified as New Adult. The narrative style is engaging, there are no blackout scenes, Tamlin on summer bonfire night is electric, I almost fell on myself when I first saw the High Lord of Night, and the villainess absolutely dominates everything that a stereotypical male villain can do (and yes, you can take all the dominating implications there) without feeling like you’re watching a catfight.

I did figure out the answer to the riddle way before the end of the trials, because I have experience with the answer. If you don’t have that kind of personal experience yet, or overthink things, you might have a hard time guessing it. But it doesn’t matter either way, because what you really want to see—why you keep reading—is to find out whether Feyre will have a self-reflective epiphany moment in time to save the ones she cares about. So in terms of character development, Feyre gets a gold star.

If you’re one of those people who likes to piece together everything, like a detective novel, throughout the story, you’re going to get a little frustrated. It’d be better if you just tried to figure out and enjoy the fey creatures instead. There will be payout, I promise. You just have to make it through 2/3 of the book first.

I did order the second book; I heard the second book is phenomenal, so I’m looking forward to it. I’m also hoping to see more of Rhysand in Book 2, but I’m hoping Rhys and Feyre’s little “arrangement” doesn’t make Feyre a cheater.

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Disclaimer / Side Note: I read this book 14 years after I started writing my own Beauty and the Beast series, BeastKing Chronicles, and was alarmed to discover that Maas and I have similar ideas as to what a beast character should look like and what kind of partial-shifting body modifications should be prevalent. One of my ideas was inspired by a particular painting I came across on Pinterest, and of course I mutated what I saw into a new idea, but apparently Maas had the same one—and I had told nobody about that mutation idea. They say “there is nothing new under the sun,” but this one struck too close to home. Though Maas and I were FictionPress contemporaries, there is no way we would have copied this from one another. I even tried researching mythology to see if we might be referencing a known mythological creature, but no such luck. I am, of course, not writing about fey in BeastKing Chronicles. But I will be seriously reconsidering some of Rome’s beast characteristics before pursuing any form of traditional publication, for the sake of original design and trademark uniqueness.

RWA Thoughts from a Person of Color in a Whitewashed World

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After a few years’ absence from RWA due to academic pursuits, I am shocked and disappointed to return to Twitter to see RWA in such an upheaval. What happened to conflict resolution? Instead, so many people have decided that resigning is the answer. Ironically, to endorse diversity, they are lessening the diversity of RWA by leaving, thinking that will solve the conflict. As both a person of color and a trained mediator, this kind of resolution seems ridiculous. So many emotion-driven decisions are flooding the media right now. What will happen to everyone when all the dust settles? How is RWA supposed to rebuild in a new image, when people keep leaving? Where is the collaboration?

It seems to me that the safest place for race in publishing is no place. That is to say, no description of a character’s appearance is going to be politically correct in all regards, and when race is addressed, the most true-to-historical-perspective depictions of race are going to be derogatory–which could get really bad really fast. The only “safety” is to not talk about it, which does not help people heal from the hundreds of years of racial oppression against minority cultures.

Where do we go from here? Shelving books in African American and Native American sections in Barnes & Noble when I worked there did strike me the wrong way–enough that I questioned another co-worker why we even had such sections. They replied by way of sympathy to minority groups, wanting to make culturally relevant books more findable; clearly my co-worker had no ill intentions by agreeing with the categorization. But what was corporate thinking? It seemed like a risky move for them to endorse. I certainly didn’t want to show anyone to a section with their race or ethnicity as its official label. Rosa Parks wasn’t that long ago.

One of the reasons why negative treatment of women, enslavement, and corrupt politics show up in my writing is because it’s frightening how difficult they are to address, and the wounds go deep in every culture. Being the slave, being the oppressed–how do you reconcile that with how things are supposed to be? How do you build a utopia, when people can never forget, even if they forgive?

I don’t think cussing out another writer or torching someone on social media is the answer. I also don’t think white fiction is wrong, or in any danger of going away. There are chauvinists, there are racists, but to look for these in every white person (like you need to screen them) is to stereotype them just as we (people of color) have been stereotyped. I don’t mind reading a story full of white people. I also don’t mind sitting through stereotypes, if I sense the author or speaker is going to swing an interesting curve ball my way. I might hurl if every African American or Latina literary character is described as having “mocha” skin. But that doesn’t mean I can’t get past the mocha to see the story beneath. It just means that your heroine should probably drink a mocha every day, for word-choice irony. 🙂

I think we forget sometimes that writing is built on stereotypes. They’re called tropes. What we do with the trope, the stigma, the conflict of interest, is what matters. We’re authors. We transform what is bad into something good, or at least into a guess at forward progress for humanity. Even if it’s messy. Especially if it’s messy.

It’s always messy.

RWA Annual Conference Experience 2016

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IMG_3840I just returned from the RWA Annual Writing Conference in San Diego, California! 5 days surrounded by writers of all levels, from aspiring to multi-published, and half of them pitching to agents and editors! The Marriott Marquis (connected to the ever-famous Convention Center) was awash with 2,000 authors toting their lime green-handled Swag Shop bags from ballroom to ballroom. On Day One, before Orientation was even a line in my schedule, I joined baffled forces with Contemporary Golden Heart Finalist Rayn Ellis. Together we ran into Romantic Suspense Finalist and previous Golden Heart Winner Diana Belchase…right before we spotted Nora Roberts passing by into the harbor!

And, again, that was Day One. First Timer Orientation wasn’t even until Day Two. Workshops, keynote speaker sessions, and publisher spotlights didn’t start until Day Three.

Yes, when I say publisher “spotlights,” I mean the editors from the major Romance publishers were actually there, detailing their publication lines, telling us what they were looking for, answering questions, and even hosting book signings and free giveaways. Which was totally separate from meeting with authors to hear them pitch their stories in person, to determine whether they wanted to read the manuscripts.

IMG_3843There was so much going on at that conference at any given time! Every hour meant a choice between 5-10 workshops, spotlights, book signings, or author panel “chats.” Chats were individualized to cover each sub-genre of Romance, and workshops ranged from author/publishing/marketing career decisions to structure, wording, and focus of the story itself. For three days, from 8:30am to 5:30pm, I tried to absorb as much as I could from as wide a variety of workshops as possible, sometimes even workshop-hopping because there was more than one workshop per hour from which to glean. Kindle representatives were there, Nook representatives were there… It was insane.

Author insanity, in the best of ways.

There was a distinct moment when I realized that one of the authors on my current workshop panel was Elizabeth Hoyt—as in, the Historical Romance author of at least one of the books I downloaded onto my Nook when I was binge-reading Beauty and the Beast stories. And she was right there, in front of me, on a panel answering questions about writing intimate scenes! 😱 Imagine my shock!

There was another moment when I realized my workshop instructor was Sarah MacLean, whose books I had actually shelved in Barnes & Noble. (You come to remember some of those big names, when they take up that much room on the shelf.)

Yes, you should wish you had been there. So, attend next year!

Special shout-outs to Brea Vinagh and Jen, my fellow first-time conference buddies! And a shout-out to Stephanie Garber as well, who encouraged me to attend events like this. Her first YA Fantasy novel, Caraval, will be released next year! Dare I say I knew her beforehand? She has been a splendid trove of advice for me, and I wish her all the best on her launch in January 2017!

IMG_3875The sheer number of people I met at the RWA conference who asked me if I had a critique partner (CP) alerted me to how badly I need one at this point in the game. I originally joined FictionPress because I was so hungry for feedback. Writing is a solo endeavor, and constructive reviewers are hard to come by—particularly for the non-YA Fantasy-Romance sub-genre (which is distinctly different from Paranormal Romance). I just joined the Fantasy, Futuristic, & Paranormal Chapter of RWA. I am also reactivating my membership in Janice Hardy‘s Critique Connections group. So, if you are interested in being a beta reader or a critique partner for my story, please let me know! I am very interested in how I can better my story, better represent my characters, and ultimately succeed in publication.

Thank you for your continued support! Story progress will be ramping back up shortly. You have Brea to thank for that. 😉

Worst Romance Reader Ever

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It’s official: I must be the WORST Romance reader EVER!!!

I love Romance. I even welcome some of the nitty-gritty TMI stuff. So why is it that the last e-book sample I read, written by a respected romance author, prompted me to make gagging noises and chuck my Nook across the room?

In the writing community, everybody is always talking about HEAs (Happily Ever Afters). And when I come across samples like I just read, it all sounds so suave—even when it’s the detached prodigal son watching a prostitute leave his bed. Bad Boy, okay yeah, I can dig that. But don’t romanticize him. Give me all his rough edges. Let his roughness come across in the writing. Let me feel him. Not feel what “good girls” want him to be underneath from the get-go. I want him to be raw. I want him to be work to get through to.

The last thing I want to do is bash on fellow writers. Indeed, these people have massive followings, so they must be doing something right.

Or everybody is just used to their favorites.

I, for one, have been spoiled off the cultured, individualized character perspectives of fantasy novels (Teen/YA and otherwise) and manga, down to the things certain characters notice and the language they use—language which often grows and changes through the course of the book, as the character himself grows and changes. So when I start in on a stereotypical Romance novel, and everything reads across in the same smooth monotone, I start to skim. And skim. Until I realize: I’m going to be skimming through this whole book. And then I grunt and groan and flail and flop, because I thought I finally had that book that I was going to read all the way through, and enjoy—that one I’d stay up all night to finish. And instead, I got one I would have set back on the bookstore shelf.

Somehow, I’ve gone from my childhood habit of reading every book that I can get my hands on in my subject of interest, to garage-selling books I don’t like and rarely finishing any books at all.

They say that writers should read widely in their genre of choice. And that’s a nice idea. BUT what happens when you throw those “wide reads” across the room—repeatedly? What happens when that becomes the reason why you keep writing the unpublished manuscript you cart around from coffee shop to coffee shop?

At this point, I just want a good read. A good romance read, with fantasy elements, if at all possible. Something I wouldn’t push “snooze” through. It doesn’t have to be spectacular…just, not uniform. Not post-apocalyptic. Not exclusively science fiction. With realistic, non-sappy, non-bratty, non-stereotypical fictional characters. I mean, come on, this is the romance section, people! It shouldn’t be this hard to sell me on the male character. He doesn’t have to be a werewolf or a vampire. In fact, I’d prefer if he’s not. He just has to be special.

If you’ve read an adult romance-fantasy story that you absolutely fell in love with, feel free to leave a comment below and give it a shout-out! I don’t care if it has mature content, but I DO care if the sex is pointless; character development through sex is an art form. The story doesn’t have to have sex though, just decent romance with fantasy. So GO! List away! PLEASE! I’m dying of suaveness overdose and bad storytelling styles.

Cruel Beauty: Pure Love or Wicked Love?

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Cruel BeautyCruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My Summary:
Nyx is trained from childhood to take down her future husband, the Demon Lord of Bargains, who holds the kingdom of Arcadia captive and offered the bargain that stole her mother’s life. Knowing the mission will cost her own life, she grows to resent the people around her, who are allowed to be happy. Nyx faces her fate squarely, but neither her husband, nor his servant, nor the house they live in are what they appear to be. She starts to fall for her husband’s tranquil servant, a shadow who desires to help her but is unable to lend much assistance. The lines between hate and love blur as Nyx realizes that the resentment and selfishness in her own heart are not so different from the quick-witted wickedness of her doomed husband, and that he may be the only person who does not ask anything of her. In the end, the fate of the world rests upon the choice of embracing pure love or wicked love, who to betray, and whether once-in-a-lifetime love is worth sacrificing the rest of the world.

This is a paranormal/occult Beauty and the Beast novel, set in Greco-Roman times, in the kingdom of Arcadia. Multiple Greek gods and myths are referenced throughout the book, as the belief system of the majority of the characters.

My Thoughts:
The book started off pretty redundant and slow, with the recurring theme of Nyx’s hurt from her father’s inaffection, disgust toward her aunt’s affair, and internal battle against hating her sister Astraia (who was not chosen to wed the Gentle Lord because of her resemblance to their dead mother) and hating her mother (whose death began Nyx’s life of revenge). I felt like I really didn’t need these themes hammered home as many times as they were within the first couple chapters.

Once I figured out that this story was not about an epic take-down, but about solving riddles, I was able to sit back and enjoy it. The fact of the matter is, nobody really knows that much about the Gentle Lord, a.k.a. the Demon Lord. And certainly nobody but his wives and the doomed people he’s bargained with know much of anything about his house. The only person who seems to know stuff is Shade, who is bound not to tell, and the Kindly Ones (who aren’t so kind, and aren’t so available). Everybody else is trying to figure stuff out. Once you see the story as one big puzzle, it makes a heck of a lot more sense.

What really threw me was that Nyx’s original tactic for taking down the Gentle Lord’s house (with him, and probably herself, inside it) was almost irrelevant. She needed to find the rooms, yes. And they had massive significance. But it felt like there was virtually no point to all that world-building about Hermetic sigils and workings, except to give context for her father’s position. I think Nyx only used a sigil once in the entire book (turning off her bedroom lamp once to show how it works doesn’t count). And her “virgin knife” never made an emphatic comeback. Not to mention, throwing away her only true trump card—her virginity—didn’t make that big of a splash. Not only was it not played up after all those nervous warning bells in the beginning, but it didn’t make any difference to the outcome. She drops her dress, and then *bam* next scene. I thought, Wow, that could have happened a lot sooner, with virtually no ripples.

It was about halfway through the book that my mind started doing gymnastics, attempting to guess the answers to all the riddles and how they all tie together. It got super fun from there, though not a lot more emotional until nearer to the end. I won’t tell you the ending, but I will tell you that it’s worth getting to. And, DON’T SKIP AHEAD!!! Seriously, you’ll be soooo confused, because at one point the chronology becomes super important. If you read the book in order, you’re already getting pieces from all different parts of the chronology, so skippers beware. I didn’t skip, but if you do, you’ll just jumble the brain-bending ending.

Consensus:
If you’re intrigued by the book’s cover blurb about an unconventional Belle and a not-so-charming lord, this is definitely the book for you. If, however, you are waiting to see that there’s a lovely Prince Charming beneath that gruff, scarred male exterior…go find another book. Part of this book’s charm is that it doesn’t conform to that old-school/Disney pop-culture transformation; it’s more realistic.

I really enjoyed this book, as a story full of puzzles and riddles and mysteries and unconventional romance. The heroine is smart (but not too smart), and doesn’t give up easily, and she doesn’t change all that radically. This book is very much about loving people as they are, and loving within your capacity to love.

So, don’t read this book for the assassination action. Read this book to get to know Ignifex and Shade, the two juxtaposed, troubled men that Nyx is not sure she can save.

In all honesty, I would have liked some more details in the narration—more narrative coddling and in-depth, in-their-head emotional action. I felt a bit distanced from the characters, like I was watching the story unfold rather than feeling my heart race when I looked at one guy or the other, or almost drowned in a supernatural pool, etc. But I wouldn’t be able to pinpoint exactly how this should have been incorporated, because I feel like all of the characters were intentionally distant; they all had secrets. And the secrets were what made the book interesting.

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Realigning with Characters’ Feelings

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I’ve been trying to jump back into writing my story, and in so doing, I’ve had to come back to a method that I’ve employed time and time again. I thought maybe, for the sake of other writers who are in the same sort of situation, I should share some advice:

If you think you can jump back into your story after a length of absence, and pick it up right where you left off, don’t. You may be able to. But that’s not the problem. The problem is that you think you remember all that your characters have been through, but you don’t. You remember the facts, the events, the flat progression.

You don’t remember your characters’ feelings.

If you’re like me, the last thing you want to do is go back and reread all of your work thus far to give yourself a clue. It’s too time-consuming. You’ll be tempted to go back and do revisions instead of writing new material. Your writing style has changed since then, and you can’t match it.

My solution?

Take a piece of paper and a pen, and start jotting down the key points of what your characters have been through recently, in chronological order. If you’re totally clueless, you could try starting at the beginning. But if you were in the middle of writing a building-block scene or a significant event, start with the beginning of that event. For instance, I left off 4-5 days into a weeklong party in my story—a party which will have a rather drastic culmination. So I glanced over my chapter titles, and skim-scrolled down my story document from the first party chapter, and began writing bullet points of emotion-driving moments that stuck out as changes from the characters’ previous thoughts or actions.

In other words, I’m tracking character development through the most recent progression of events.

You don’t have to write down things like “he was angry” or “she was jealous,” but your bullet points should bring such things to mind when you see them. Like, “she saw him kissing another girl” brings to mind a bunch of emotions the character should be feeling (i.e. jealousy, loss, a sense of urgency to fix it, etc.).

The purpose of the bullet points is to bring your own emotional scale into line with that of your characters. You felt with them once. You need to feel with them again. If you saw your love interest kissing a girl who was a complete stranger at a party, you would feel ___. If someone offered a pleasant distraction from your girlfriend making out with another guy, you would be ___ if she condemned you for accepting it.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

It’s not enough to jump back into the plotline events. You have to realign yourself so you can breathe in sync with your characters. Only then can you feel out what needs to happen next to move things along.

Hope that helps you as much as it helped me.

Workshop Help: Information vs. Perspective

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I recently realized I hadn’t updated my Volume 1 info page. Whoops. Fixed that.

As I mentioned before, I’ve been dragging my heels in my writing a bit because I signed up for some online writing workshops.

“Do those really help?”

Yes and no. There’s always the stuff you already know from experience, the stuff you’ve already researched, and the stuff you can’t figure out how to assimilate. The farther along you are in your writing, the more narrowed your focus. For instance, I now know that I am writing an antihero (as opposed to a Prince Charming or an epic hero), and my Fantasy story’s plot decided it wants to be a Romance. So every time I read advice about what a hero should and shouldn’t have, and what they should and shouldn’t do, I’m seeing it through a Romance/Antihero lens. I take some things, and I toss the rest. What to take vs. what to toss is the pivotal question. My male counterpart is an Antihero, he’s discreetly muscled and slimly built, and I loathe irrelevant book covers, so I automatically dismiss the idea of having a book cover image depicting a headless muscly chest, and I’m going to ignore any advice on how to make him extra-fluffy lovable. On the other hand, he’s damaged with a past, I want readers to be sympathetic, and I’ve got to get my heroine (and my readers) to fall for him. So I’m more than happy to take advice about how to write in his sexy quirks every couple lines, and build questions and intrigue through his actions and reactions.

Information is what is helpful in these workshops. It’s authors handing you tools. It’s social connections. And it’s awareness of your contemporaries and the current book market.

Perspective is a totally different issue. The best perspective help I’ve had volunteered actually comes from readers in the genre, down to the subgenre and the sub-subgenre. There’s no substitute for it. Readers intrinsically know what they’re looking for in a subgenre—or rather, they can tell whether what they’re looking for is or isn’t present. Some readers will just drift away if they feel your story is lacking. But other readers will leave a line or two—or even a few paragraphs—if they know you’re interested in what they have to say.

So I’d like to say “thank you” to those readers who reviewed my most recent chapter, and those who have reviewed my story in the past. Also, a special “thank you” to those readers who reviewed multiple versions of my story. It is your comments I keep in mind when I revise, and when I try to figure out where to write to next. It is your comments that I use to write myself out of corners. And your comments have helped make me a better writer. Don’t think that your one little nay-saying comment is not heard inside a bunch of yay’s, or vice versa. I know I have cut scenes some of you liked, but don’t think I’ve deleted them. They’re still here, waiting to be added back in.

That being said, I am slowly realizing that all of my focus on the “right” ways to do things in order to get published has both helped and stunted my writing. I’ve been outlining and re-outlining, trying to figure out where to go next. That’s necessary, at certain stages. But I’m looking at two more events before the end of the second book, and realizing my writing went so much faster when I just free-wrote. Sure, I wrote myself into a bunch of corners. Sure, I had a bunch of adverbs and repetitive sentence structures. But I also chalked scenes full of emotion and used them as catalysts for unexpected plot turns…and I did it without hardly thinking about it. I just followed my pen. The next revision I have in mind for my manuscript is actually way closer to my original plot ideas, because my story has taken on a life of its own and thus far I have opted to blindly follow it, into whatever unexpected turmoil my pen may lead. I’m not sure which is better to publish: the original plot, or the raw, character-charged emotional turns of events. But with the end of the second book finally taking shape, I think I might just throw myself into it. After all, that’s where all the limes are going to hit the fan.

The second event at the end of this book, I was actually considering moving to the end of the first book. But now I’m not so sure. I guess I’ll figure it out after it’s written. After all, no matter which order events fall in for these two books, events in the next portion of the story should progress the same.

I don’t know if I will go right into writing and posting the next book after I finish Book 2. I might, if I have momentum. But it seems like a great breaking point for revisions.

Anyway, I’m finishing up a Male P.O.V. workshop by Sascha Illyvich (previously entitled “Inside the Male Mind”). I’m starting in on a Romance Writers of America workshop called “Killer Openings” by Alexa Bourne, which should help with the revisions I’ve been toying with for the beginning of my series. I’m also attending a one-night class on publishing and a seminar about characters this month. After those, my two-month workshop madness will be complete. It’s quite the marathon, and it can be difficult to switch back and forth between question mode, social mode, revision mode, and writing mode. Who knew authors had to be such multi-taskers? But after that, it should slow down…and my writing should pick back up. Theoretically.

Chapter 12 is underway; don’t think I’ve forgotten about it just ’cause I’m in a workshop frenzy. I’ve spent a lot of time mulling it over, attempting outlines, and brainstorming specific prospective scenes. I’m being careful, because recent discussions about bondage and alphas has helped me see how important it is that I handle the details of Lord Alonza’s party the right way. Rome may be dominant, but it is very important that you (my dear readers) see that his brand of dominance distinguishes itself that of the corrupt nobility—that they’re about a lot of things that he’s not. I believe the best way to do that is to stick Rome in a noble-dominant situation, and contrast his desires (and how he handles them) within the same situation.

I should warn you, though: Some bad crap is going to happen to Labriella. And, Sheryl, you’re right; Labriella has been growing more timid. But, if I play my cards right, the aftermath of said “bad crap” is going to change that. 😉

So stay tuned!

Frostbite: Graduating High School with a Frosty Touch

Posted by Seriah Black Sheep on

Frostbite (Touch of Frost, #1)Frostbite by Lynn Rush (Touch of Frost #1)
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My Summary:
Amanda’s mother had super-strength, and the ability to create and manipulate ice, snow, and sleet—abilities she passed on to her daughter, but not her son. The organization that experimented on Amanda’s mom, and eventually murdered her, is out to capture and study Amanda too…or possibly kill her if she won’t comply. Every time the scientists’ henchmen find Amanda and her brother Scott, the siblings flee and have to start over again in a new town. Except this time, Amanda has a best friend and a potential boyfriend, and her brother has a girlfriend, so neither one wants to leave. They resolve to stay as long as they can, and fight for their new small-town life. But some of the people around them aren’t who they pretend to be, and Amanda’s hard-to-control emotion-driven powers are escalating with her raging hormones and stress level. If Amanda and Scott choose to stay and fight for their newfound happiness, can they really win?

My Thoughts:
There is death-by-freezing in this novel, and Amanda’s parents did die a brutal death, but the teenage voice of the story keeps it from reading like angst or tragedy. However, that same teenage tone gave me the feeling of all relationships (other than sibling) being transitory—like they were important and desired, but were just as easily ditched as adopted. That annoyed me. But maybe that’s just a personality preference. Or maybe that’s what you’re supposed to feel, because that’s how Amanda’s would-be boyfriend feels.

The premise of this story sets up the reader to be suspicious of all characters, so I felt just as unsure who to root for as the characters are uncertain who to trust. I kept waiting for everyone to not be who they said they were. It’s beautifully written suspense, but it made it very difficult for me to buy into the sweetness of Amanda’s budding romance, and the “coincidence” of that romance beginning just as everything began to hit the fan.

The powers were very well orchestrated, with emphasis on the emotions that trigger the powers, and what the powers actually feel like. As the reader, you discover the extent of those powers along with the characters, and can almost imagine the ice growing along your own arm. Impressive.

A surprising theme in this story is love between siblings. Most of the book consists of siblings banding together and taking care of one another. It’s endearing, but it can get irritating when you keep waiting for the romance to go somewhere and you end up with “I can’t”s and sibling care instead.

I wasn’t really reading this story for the sci-fi part, but it does lend credibility to the existence of freezing powers, and adds a sense of urgency to all the happenings in the story. Information about the powers and the organization at large is gradually revealed throughout, but it’s not until the big blowout at the end that the sciencey stuff was presented in a way that really mattered to me. The rest of the time were just teases based on flashbacks and fear.

Consensus:
The story is an interesting read, and the powers are well-handled. It’s a nice, comfortable story with a fluffy romance. But if you’re looking for a high-speed sci-fi chase with a kickass boyfriend, this isn’t it.

I personally needed to feel more depth and permanency. And I needed reassurance that Zack wasn’t a plant, and Jasmine wasn’t a conniving bitch. But my tastes in reading are a bit darker, and I don’t really buy into WAFF that doesn’t have internal relational problems built in. More lighthearted readers will probably buy in, and love this story. To them, I say, “More power to ya!” 😉

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Going Down in Flames: Harry Potter for Dragons

Posted by Seriah Black Sheep on

Going Down in FlamesGoing Down in Flames by Chris Cannon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My Summary:
Just before her sixteenth birthday, Bryn finds out that she is a mixed breed dragon, and will be required to attend dragon school. It also turns out that the most powerful man in the Directorate (the dragon governing body) is the man Bryn’s mother ran away from to marry Bryn’s father. Against her will, Bryn goes away to dragon school, where she is thought to be a genetic impossibility at best, an abomination (to be destroyed) at worst. There she must learn the rules of dragon society, and who she can trust.

The dragons seem to exist alongside humans (though that’s not always their preference), but have a society all their own. The bulk of this story takes place in a setting reminiscent of Harry Potter, with a faraway school and a nearby small shopping town that is aware of the dragon community.

My Thoughts:
I really enjoyed the interactions between characters in this story, but to a large degree those interactions revolve around food, so prepare to be hungry! The main character eats a ridiculous amount, and though that is explained away as dragon metabolism (and possibly power and ability expenditure), she far out-eats every other dragon – so much so that eating becomes a part of her character. So you if you don’t like salivating over food, this might not be the story for you. But Bryn’s love of food does play into at least one major plot development, so it’s not without its reasons.

I was a little surprised that so much of this story revolved around everyday school life. It was handled well, even down to the subjects taught in class. But because of the school setting, there was almost no contact with the outside world; Bryn’s parents and friend Beth never showed up again after the beginning of the story. This is understandable, given the situation. However, I was waiting to see how Bryn would balance the tension between the outside world and the dragon world, and the idea of coexisting in between. I felt like this never happened.

Bryn immediately takes a moral stance against arranged marriages and the affairs they produce in dragon society. On the other hand, she is easily swayed by her crush’s assurance that he will find a way to break off his unwanted engagement. And Bryn has no problem accepting gifts from the would-be benefactor she turned down. That shakes a bit of my faith in Bryn as a reasonable character. But maybe this is just her optimism showing through?

Overall, the book was very well written, with a nice twist toward the end. I felt like the loose ends were neatly wrapped up in the ending, while still leaving room for the story to continue into another book. The characters are likable, and the bullies are enough to make the reader nervous. The ideas of benefactors, mistresses, and mates after graduation definitely appeal to an older teen audience (or people in their twenties), and did not make me feel like I was reading a Teen book. But those things are only explored as ideas, and no romance in the book is beyond a couple brief kisses. And those hints at more adult concepts are strongly offset by the strict high school setting.

I do wish there were a few more “curve balls” thrown at me. I love unforeseen twists and turns, and I felt like I mostly got that at the beginning and the end of the story. I could have used a few more loops or corkscrews in the middle.

Consensus:
I would definitely recommend this book as a refreshing new approach to dragons and a brilliant blending of fantasy with real-world problems. But do not be surprised if there are more school scenes with spark-snorting tempers, than actual dragon scenes. And have a snack on-hand.