Writers: Do Your Characters Nurture Your Writing?

  Most of the guru-speak I've read/heard talks about what writers must do for their characters. Recently, I began to wonder about what our characters should do for us. Lots of kids eventually take care of their parents as they get older.Why can't characters help writers as their series age?

  One book's a cinch...if you've got the writing chops. At the start of the series, the characters present a new land to be explored, complete with new concepts and problems. I recently exchanged reviews with a writer who came up with an intriguing new take on angel-human relationships--at least it was new to me, Amy Vansant's Angeli -- The Pirate, the Angel and the Irishman.

  The storyline traces the progress of Anne Bonney, the pirate of renown, as she becomes a Sentinel, a policeman for angels gone so bad they drain people of their energy. Yeah, she's as much of a rule breaker as a Sentinel as she was as was as an 18th century woman. 

  But there's more to like with the book: a love triangle that's announced in the title, but the book is more than a common chick-lit romance. Vansant has a rollicking sense of humor that turns the entire read into a smile-fest, even though the heros are chasing an evil bad guy or guys. I imagine sequels will have problems avoiding reruns of the same old motives, but for now the story line is a fresh as the morning sunshine after a rain. May Vansant prove me wrong. 
5*****

  Then, there's the other end of a writing career. I read several authors automatically when I find their new mass paperback editions. And sometimes, I re-read previous titles if a new one doesn't come out quickly enough. When you've written many books about the same characters, It takes true creativity to keep from recycling the same ideas over and over. Granted there has to be some overlap if a bunch of books are to be a series. The trick is in keeping the books exploring new territory.

  One of the writers who amazes me with her consistency and her inventiveness is Kay Hooper. I think I started reading her titles back in the 1990s. I'm still reading them even though she's basically a romance writer, and most romances bore me. 

  Her psychic F.B.I. agents, led by Noah Bishop, and their civilian counterpart [Haven] are a different story. I like the way Hooper plays with the supernatural even if her books tend to get repetitive. I've recently read Hostage and Haven. They are set in a new trilogy, as usual with her writing pattern, and deal with a new enemy who plots to destroy Bishop. At least that what previous nemesises have threatened to do. Hooper's achievement? She puts together a good thriller with a well-fleshed killer, usually with strong, realistic psychic abilities. 

One device Hooper uses to keep her books fresh is a romance as a sub-plot. Each book presents a new psychic couple discovering each other as they hunt down a killer. Yeah, the premise is used in hundreds of books each year. Hooper does it without putting you to sleep.

  One of the problems with a long running series is that sameness does creep in. Another negative, Bishop too often plays the role of puppet master to his investigators. Granted Hooper delivers a fun, fast paced read with lots of chills, but her ideas are starting to feel a little shop worn.
4**** for both books.

<<>> 

  Have been having fun with Crossings. Spent huge amounts of time submitting it to promo sites when I'd rather be writing. Truth be told. I'm still doing it. My big achievement. Crossings is up on Amazon for free at the moment.

  The results? Crossings has ranked at high as #3 in this obscure Kindle category.

• #9 in Kindle Store > Kindle Short Reads > 90 minutes (44-64 pages) > Science Fiction & Fantasy

When I copied it from my listings, it was #9. Surprise. Surprise. It even looks like there might be a couple sales on the chart for The Ghost in the Closet, but I doubt if they amount to a cup of coffee.

  Oh, and I even have some 5***** reviews of my own.

  Don't think I'm resting on my "best-selling" laurels though. The Ghost Crow is progressing. I'm taking my own advice and recycling Dumdie Swartz of The Ghost in the Closet. This time with a story set during her teen years -- though I don't think of it as YA. I'm maybe halfway through the first draft, and I know where I'm going.

  My Far Isles Half-Elven? They're are resting in obscurity though they sometimes appear on the first page in Goggle and Bing under the search term "Half-Elven". People even click through. How do I know? My website links are the only places where I promote The Foiling of Gorsfeld, a story set during Mariah's teen years, and it gets downloaded regularly.

Care to share how you've recycled some of your characters?

Thinking About Where Do Book Series Begin? End?

My obsession with series continues. You can blame it on The Grumpy Dragon and its suggestion that I write a sequel to There Be Demons. The thought's scary like jumping off a cliff without a parachute.

Why? All the novels that have come out of my computer so far have grown organically as my characters careened from one situation to the next. The Demons sequel demands a outline. Why? Because if there's a middle, there logically has to be an end. Seems to me setting up the situation is the easy part. The rest has to build an expand on what happened before.

What are your feelings on this?

Cricket McCrae, aka Bailey Cates, poured gas on my fire, aka questions. She's the author of the Magical Bakery Mysteries among others. I recently read the last two in the series ... trilogy? ... close together -- Bewitched, Bothered, and Biscotti and Charms and Chocolate Chips. Yeah, the titles reek of cozy cutesie, but I read and enjoyed them anyway -- without having to control my gag reflex. McCrae/Bailey has a light touch with murder. I'll take my smiles where I can find them.

The first book,  Brownies and Broomsticks, sets up the series when Katie Lightfoot moves to Savannah, GA. She hopes to start a new career helping her aunt and uncle set up a bakery. Lightfoot's running from a bad job, a relationship gone teminal, and a mother who forgot to tell her she was a witch-in-waiting. The most important "man" in her life is the stray mutt who sets himself up as her familiar though the book sets up two possible suitors.  The storyline follows her trek of discovery -- including a knack for sleuthing when her uncle becomes the prime suspect in a murder. 

Bewitched, Bothered and Biscotti has Lighfoot learning her magical abilities mean more than charming the baked good with herbs and good intentions. She continues finding murdered bodies and solving crimes, in spite of police opposition. She's also in the enviable situation of choosing between two hunks -- one with magic and one normal. Lightfoot also comes to terms with the fact she's a witch and learns about the various permutations the Craft can take. The most important revelation in the second volume is that Lightfoot is more powerful than a common hedge witch ...only she has no one to teach her.

Charms and Chocolate Chips continues Lightfoot's journey -- and leaves me hanging. Is the book the last of a trilogy or the third in an ongoing series? 

Lightfoot is becoming part of the community now and is volunteering for a local conservation group when the director is murdered, supposedly because she opposed the sale of a swamp to a consortium who wants to build a golf course. She settles on the normal guy for romance, but she doesn't know if she can make it work, especially when she puts him in harm's way. 

Her mother coming to Savannah to reconcile with Lightfoot makes me wonder if there will be more Lightfoot mysteries. Many of the protagonist's problems are wrapped up in an acceptable way in this book, including a reconciliation with her mother. I can see where the series could go on as Lightfoot solves more murders in Savannah. But took a look at the author websites, but didn't find any clues as to the writer's intentions.

So what about the writing craft aspects of these novels? I especially admire how McCrae/Bailey draws her characters. Even the tertiary ones are well-rounded. The plots twist enough to be interesting. Her villains are well motivated. McCrae/Bailey puts together a nice paranormal mystery, based on nice people you wouldn't mind knowing. Maybe even make you wish you did know people like them.

McCrae/Bailey stirs up a nice, cross-genre confection. I'm stuffing all three volumes in my overloaded book shelves. Five stars to the series as well as the individual books.

###

Writers write, right? Sometime during the day, I know I'm supposed to write. I try. Really I do. I even have a schedule. Toy with Forbidden Fruit in the evenings. [I still want to publish more novellas about the my Half-Elven world.] 

In the morning, I was working on edits for Black Tail's War. Now, I'm launching a new project. Why?

1. Taking Vengeance is finally up on Amazon, Nook, and Smashwords. I need to promote it.
2. I've submitted The Noticing One, a short story, to Amazon singles.
3. Since it worked the first time with Night for the Gargoyles, I'm writing a short story set in the world of the sequel to There Be Demons. Even have a tentative book title, Crossing the River.

Think that's enough on my plate.

Oh, I've been offering Taking Vengeance free on Smashwords to people who follow me on the various social media that consume too much of my time. The code is EG75E, and it's good until 30 November 2013. Link to buy

If you like it, I'd appreciate a review. Just a short paragraph. No Master's Thesis.

Book Series Failure

The Read ...

What do you do when the subsequent books in a series leave you lukewarm?  

Over the weekend, I read German writer, Kai Meyer's The Water Mirror, the first of his YA Dark Reflections trilogy.  The book was filled with adventures -- starting with an escape from an orphanage to an apprenticeship that turned into a jump into danger to greater danger as the magician pharaoh of Eqypt conquers the city of Venice, using mummies of the dead he exhumed from the other countries he conquered.  

Set in an alternative world, Meyer gives fantasy readers of number of different paranormal elements not usually seen in American ficton.  A mirror of water (that never spills) instead of glass.  Intelligent mermaids.  Living stone lions (symbol of Venice).  A magical Flowing Queen who had used the waters of the canals to save Venice from the pharaoh -- until she was captured by treachery and saved by the two main characters of the book.  The plot moved, the writing was elegant, and the characters well-defined.  

Over all it was an engrossing read so I jumped into the other two books, looking forward to a couple good reads.

Again, there were some delicious elements like the magic of Baba Yaga saving Czarist Russia from the pharaoh and his army of mummies.  [Russian soldiers wear chicken feet around their necks.]  The two heros and the Flowing Queen trying for an alliance with the denizens of Hell to save Venice after the Venetians killed the first Hellish emissary.  The friends of the heroes fighting in the Venetian resistance.  I especially liked the lion motif that expanded into a sphinx motif when the main characters took the battle to Eqypt.

While the books had all the right pieces, I found myself skimming them rather than reading them.  The elegance had disappeared ... and I think that was mostly due to the translation.  Rather sad, I think.  Meyer offers the reader some interesting ideas. 

[So, now I'm wondering what kind of translation my books might get --  if they ever get sold.]

Progress ...

I mention most of the "progress" I made at the Half-Elven blog ... which was mostly learning stuff I should already know.  Still, I think I've made the Half-Elven site more understandable.  Now I have to add some content ... which I'll probably get criticized because I'm intentionally using "telling" mode for my free stories.

Queries.  Am sending two manuscripts out for rejection, [probably not for the execution so much as the content].  There Be Demons and Dark Solstice.  Since I'm putting the Half-Elven site up, I thought I should go back and try to market the main book of the sequence.  [It's also the one that's "done".] 

I've got my fantasy agent list almost compiled, courtesy of Agent Query and a lot of agent blogging.  It's a dishearteningly short list ... but at least the agents sound like they might be interest in the kind of fantasy I write.  Of course, I am complicating things by having an adult, a young adult, and a couple of middle grade manuscripts ready or almost ready.

I'm sending out several queries a week, and I'm already getting the "I'm sorry but this project isn't right for me" letters.

Trivia ...

Just doing our usual boring stuff, like going to farmers' markets even though most of our fruit and vegetables are coming out of our own yard now.  The apricots are all eaten, but the peaches are coming on. 

Did get a little excitement yesterday when a thunder-bunder crashed on top of the house.  The cats jumped and ran every which way.  I jumped, but stayed sat in my living room chair and thanked my crossed toes the computer was turned off.