In a cosmic alignment of calendar events, I have stuff featured at two other blogs today. If you haven’t checked them out yet, I strongly recommend doing so!
The First 7500 Words is a new-ish blog, but I was intrigued by the concept. You either grab your reader right away, or you don’t. As I read along, I found myself bookmarking at Goodreads some of what had been reviewed, which gave me the last little shove I needed to submit my own book. Jennifer, the blogger/reviewer, does a great job at being snarky and humorous without crossing the line into nastiness, which is refreshing.
The Voices of Fiction project is still going on over at Footsteps of a Writer (I think I linked it here once before). It’s been great to see the wide variety of answers to each question. The current question (“Who is your favorite fictional character?”) is especially fascinating, as different people are inspired by wildly different traits and actions (or reactions, as the case may be).
Some people may argue that today, in the age of e-readers, cover art isn’t as important as it once was. I am quite firmly a Kindle girl, but for the most part, I still like the pretty pictures. That said, there are a couple of books I’ve read in the past year or so that I have NO IDEA what sort of covers they had. Did that detract from my enjoyment of the book? Probably not. Similarly, I’ve read some books that had either really simple or really…uh…unattractive/not anatomically correct covers. Again, I don’t think they affected how I felt about the actual content. (For example: I loved Heather Killough-Walden’s The Game, and that’s some pretty basic artwork on the cover. I’ll also argue that the dice have little to do with anything that actually happens inside.)
I write erotic romance. In my readings in that genre, as well as my participation in relevant discussion groups and online forums, there seemsto be certain elements that appear in most covers. Back in the day of the paperback “bodice rippers”, the formula was simple: Pale woman with long, flowing hair and a low-cut dress clutches at or is clutched by a tanned, shirtless muscular man (also with long, flowing hair?) who is either brandishing a weapon, standing on a rock as waves crash behind him, or steering a boat. (Possibly all three of these.) It was so formulaic, my college friends and I even took the time to mock it on film back in the day.
Identities obscured to protect the overly silly.
Come on, you know they all looked like that. But you know, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If you picked up a book that had people posing like that on the cover, you knew exactly what you were going to get. Inside, these characters are not going to be sitting around sipping tea and discussing quantum physics or the meaning of life. And if you picked up the book based on that cover, you probably wouldn’t want them to.
Today, things are a little different. I know the “bodice rippers” still exist, and the covers haven’t changed all that much. These days, actual erotica is a bit more mainstream, and those covers reflect that. Instead of the low-cut corseted dress, the heroine wears maybe just the corset and a thong on the cover. Instead of being on a ship being rocked by the turbulent seas, maybe they’re on a bed with satin sheets. Either way, the end result is the same – when you pick up that book, you have a pretty good idea of what’s going to be inside.
That brings me to the topic of my covers. Now, I had zero input with cover design (as is the case with most publishers, I believe), and there were some sleepless nights where I worried that I was going to hate them. My friends will tell you that my nightly mantra before the Searching the Skies release was “Please let her boobs look real, please let her boobs look real….” Let’s take a closer look:
Fierce! (And real!)
I love this artwork. Even though the book is mainly about scandalous activities, this depiction implies that she is more than an object to be ravished. She may have her fun between the sheets, but she will also go out and shoot things in the face with that badass gun. Score!
Next up is The Edge of the Sphere. Again, I had no idea what the cover art for this book was going to be, and as I admitted on the day of the release, I was initially a little surprised:
What’s inside the house in the woods? I’ll never tell!
Ooh, mysterious. Without revealing too many plot details, both our main characters do, in fact, live in homes that look just like that. There’s a certain dreamy, mysterious quality that reflects the tone of the first section of the book. It looks like the forest is filled with secrets. I like it.
With both of these covers, there’s nothing about them that screams “THIS BOOK IS FILLED WITH DIRTY SMUT”, for better or worse. Me personally, I sort of like that there aren’t any scantily-clad lovers with their pouty lips parted as they delight in their passion on there. (Also, friends have told me that they like being able to read the paperbacks on public transportation without getting any odd looks.) However, it could be argued that readers looking for a certain kind of book might pass these over if they feel the covers don’t reflect what they’re looking for. Would I sell more books if the covers followed the trends? Who knows. But I’m happy that my characters are sealed inside covers that convey their depth.
(Can’t post this without acknowledging the awesome team at Double Dragon Publishing! All the covers are amazing there, not just mine!)
Congratulations to our three winners! Jason and Laura had the good fortune of being randomly lucky, while Shannon gets her book for providing the most entertaining entry! (I won’t give away too many incriminating details, but I’ll say that I had the same reaction as her when reading about it and thinking it over – yikes! 😉 ) Check your emails for information about the e-book!
Thanks to everyone who entered – keep checking back for more updates and chances to win STUFF!
Let’s give out some e-copies of The Edge of the Sphere! The last giveaway was a blast, so I feel the need to outdo myself. This time, we’re going to have an extra bit of fun!
Dreams play a significant role in TEotS. (Dreams of an adult nature, of course.) The question to enter this giveaway is “Tell me about a naughty dream you’ve had!” There are three e-copies up for grabs: For two of them, I’ll pick the winners at random. The third copy will go to the entry with the hottest dream!
Here’s where we’ll make things even more awesome – since I know that sometimes it’s hard to pick just one dream as a favorite (me, I don’t know if I would go with the Leonardo DiCaprio in “Titanic” dream, or Nathan Fillion in his “Firefly” gear…both were EXCELLENT dreams), you can enter once a day between now and Tuesday!
The giveaway will be open until midnight on Tuesday (EST). I do my book gifting from allromanceebooks.com, as they have nearly every format imaginable. You do need an account there to receive the book, but it’s an easy site to navigate if you’ve never been there before.
So The Edge of the Sphere was released today, about a month ahead of schedule. Yay!
Right now, the e-book is available from the publisher and All Romance Ebooks. Last time, I think it took about a week for the Kindle version to go up on Amazon, and about two weeks for the paperback. I’ll be sure to keep you posted! Get ready for some giveaways in the next few weeks!
I think every writer has heard “Where do you get your ideas?” about, oh, a million times. It’s a valid question. Sometimes just coming up with something to write about is half the battle. (And then there are all the other fun battles, like actually putting it down on paper, and making sure the idea can last for more than a paragraph, and so on.)
Inspiration for The Edge of the Sphere (coming in August!) came from an interesting place. And by “interesting”, I mean “nerdy, incredibly nerdy, oh dear god I can’t believe I’m about to blog about this nerdy”. So my love for video games has already been pretty well-documented on this blog. I’ve already discussed how much the book was influenced by some of my favorite games. However, I think “influence” and “inspiration” can be very different things. Let’s talk about the latter.
On a fansite for a series I particularly love, there was some ongoing discussion about our favorite characters. Somehow, this led to one of the members writing a series of shorts about us (as in, real people us) going out on dates with said video game characters. (I told you this was going to be embarrassing!) Everyone got about 1000 words about their “date”, and then there was a grand finale where we all got together in the same room and some chaos and hilarity ensued. All good, harmless fun, albeit EXTREMELY geektastic.
Then I got nominated to write the sequel. Sure, why not? I dutifully started planning and asked everyone who they wanted to be paired up with this time around – if they wanted the same “dates” or if they wanted to change. One of my friends, who goes by Xander on the sites, tried to duck out of this series and said he didn’t want to be included. Hahaha no. Nice try. Due to his insolence, I told him that he no longer got to choose, and I would be picking his date for him.
I settled on an original character he’d created for a role-playing game set in an alternate universe. He’d written a lot about her and created artwork for her (and some of us had already teased him about her being his fake girlfriend, we’re so nice), so I figured I’d have a lot to go on. For the sequel, I decided everyone was already in established relationships with their “dates”, except Xander started off his chapter single and alone. In about 1000 words, I wrote a story about how he dreamt of a woman, drew pictures of her, and then eventually met her, all while borrowing some ideas and scenes that he’d created when he made the character.
And this is where my trolling backfired – people really liked the story. I got some great feedback on it, and most people thought it was really sweet and imaginative. In other words, I set out to be an asshole poking fun at my friend’s then-lack of a social life, and then everyone told me how nice I was. Go figure.
Many months later, something made me think of that story, I don’t even remember what. I couldn’t get it out of my mind, and the fact that other people enjoyed it certainly helped. Long story short, with permission from Xander, that 1000 word short eventually turned into a 50K-word novel. (Well, only the first 10K words or so are based off that little chapter. Then I took a sharp turn into very different territory.) When I originally wrote the single chapter, I never thought that it would turn into something so much bigger. Now, the book has officially become my favorite thing I’ve ever written.
Oh, and the nerds and geeks are going to take over the world one day. Mark my words.
I know, I know, I’ve been neglecting ye olde blogge again. But this time for good reason! The Edge of the Sphere is almost completely edited – I just have to make a few more changes in this last round, and then go through every word one final time before shipping it off to be put in the “cover design, then release” queue. Yay! I’m super-excited about this book. (And yes, I’ll be giving away some free copies once it comes out!)
Somehow, I have also been writing like a DEMON. I don’t want to start my next book just yet (more on that in a moment), so I’ve been doing some freebies for some gaming sites. I figure that it’s a pretty good way to 1) stay in the writing groove and try to keep to a schedule and 2) potentially build my audience. I was never really one to be all “I MUST write x number of words a day!”, but it has been a good exercise to try to churn out a certain amount on a regular basis.
I sort of wonder where this burst of energy is coming from, but I’m trying not to question the mojo too much and just ride it as long as it lasts. In a bit of personal news, my husband and I are waiting to close on a house, so we hope to be moving sometime during the month of July. We’re also trying to squeeze a family vacation in there somewhere, so maybe the subconscious part of my brain somehow knows that time is going to be limited soon and I must wriiiiiiiiiiiiiiite for as long as I can before things get crazy.
I’ll try to be better about keeping up here. After I’m finished with my current project and we’re settled in the new house, I hope to start the new book and I’d love to ramble about ideas here. And besides – once we’re settled in there, we’re going to be DIRT POOR for a while, and I’m going to need the free entertainment….
Editing for The Edge of the Sphere is officially underway. For the most part, I was able to take what I had learned from the editing process with Searching the Skies and apply it in order to deliver a cleaner manuscript the first time around. It’s a longer book, but there didn’t seem to be as much red e-ink from my wonderful editor on it, so to speak.
That said, it appears that the majority of the stuff I need to fix falls into one of two categories: repeated words/phrases and adverb abuse. I guess I really haven’t learned much. Maybe having blog posts about those things for the world to see will hold me accountable for such grievous errors in the future. (There were a couple of places where the number of adverbs was cringe-worthy. I’d like to know what I was smoking when 1) I wrote it, and 2) all the times I proofread it. I think I need an adverb support group.)
In addition to having to hack ‘n’ slash at least three quarters of my adverbs, I have a new word to add to my list of repeated words from my previous post: “still”. I used it waaaaaaaay too much, and now I’m noticing it my current writings. Super. At least I cut down on the number of “but”s!
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever really get this writing thing down. Probably not. Then again, if we all got things done perfectly on the first try, editors would be out of work. I’ll just look at my “still”s and “but”s and “-ly” words as stimulating the economy.
Repeated words are usually considered a big no-no. I like to think I catch most of them, but every now and then, I’ll proof/edit something and find the same word written a million times in two pages. (I may be exaggerating just a little bit.) Last night, I was going over a very short chapter, only about 1000 words or so, and in that 1000 words, I’d used the word “hope/hoped” at least four times. Good job, Thea. Good job.
That, at least, was pretty easy to fix. I was able to quickly swap in some other words that didn’t sound awkward at all. Other times, I don’t get so lucky. When writing The Edge of the Sphere, one of my problems was coming up with different ways to talk about water. “Water” itself doesn’t have a whole lot of synonyms. Sometimes I was able to describe the form of the water, like “pond”, “waves”, etc., but other times, water just had to be plain old water.
The two other troublesome words that immediately spring to mind are “smile” and “eyes”. Granted, maybe it should be a hint to me that my characters spend too much time grinning like idiots, but sometimes “grin” and “smirk” and the like have connotations that I just don’t want. While I’ll admit to occasionally using them, the frequently-used metaphors for “eyes”, such as “orbs”, usually make me roll my…sightballs. Eyes it is, then.
I’ve seen similar discussions come up with regard to using characters’ names and how much repetition is acceptable. While I’m confessing things, I’ll also admit to swapping in descriptors like “the blonde seductress” and “the rugged commander” when I’m getting tired of names and pronouns in the past. A lot of writers seem to feel that repetition of characters’ names is just fine. After giving it some thought, I’m inclined to agree. Especially when there are a lot of people of the same gender in a scene. Oof, those pronouns can get crazy in there.
Lastly, I’ll throw in a callback to my post about adverbs. Sometimes I’ll take the time to go back and look over some of my older writings and see what worked well and where I really need to improve. This exercise has made me cringe at times, because not only was I abusing the adverbs, I was using a lot of the same ones over and over and over again. Ouch. Those have been eliminated completely.
Characters. Without them, plot is meaningless. There would be no way to forge an emotional connection to what’s going on. Not to mention no one would be talking to each other, and I don’t think I can function in a world without dialogue.
The reasons for creating characters were easy enough to find. Actually creating them, forming people with histories and hobbies and feelings and flaws, is more difficult. They have to be compelling, they have to be realistic, they usually have to exhibit some sort of growth, and I suppose most of them should be somewhat likable.
So you’ve created a character, you’ve given him years of history that takes up several pages of your outlines, you know what he looks like right down to the last freckle on his chin, and you know how he’ll react to every set of circumstances you’re going to fling at him. Now what? We’ve reached a tricky spot again. We want our readers to form a bond with him, but we don’t want to fall into the dreaded “info dump” trap. There are also cliches and tropes and stereotypes to avoid. Oh, and we have to work in some plot and conflict somewhere along the line. It’s a wonder anything gets done!
If your hero is super strong and brave and seemingly invincible, readers will get annoyed if there’s not something there to balance it out. If your heroine is whiny and sniveling and sitting around waiting to be rescued, readers will get annoyed if there’s not something to balance it out. If whatever you choose to balance them out isn’t convincing (like, you reveal 75% of the way through the book that your unsympathetic unwilling partner is always cranky because when he was two years old, he watched his mother get mauled to death by a bear, or something like that), what happens then? You guessed it! Readers will get annoyed! (And really, it seems like it doesn’t take a whole lot to annoy readers. They’re a picky lot.)
The really pesky thing is that there doesn’t seem to be a formula for creating great characters. Or if there is, no one’s discovered it yet. (Note to self: put that on the list of potential ways to make millions.) I think one of the most important things we can do is to take a step back and try to look at our creations objectively. I know, I know, I’ve heard it before – our characters are our children, we grow attached, blah blah blah. But just because we love them doesn’t mean the rest of the world is going to automatically love them as well. We have to EARN that love!
