Juliana Spink Mills Hunts with a Blade

Jamie Marchant Posted on by

My guest today is science fiction/fantasy author, Juliana Spink Mills, here to tell you about her exciting novel.

Juliana was born in England but grew up in Brazil. Now she lives in Connecticut, USA, with her husband and two kids, and writes science fiction and fantasy. She has a soft spot for stories with explosions and fight scenes, tempered with moonlight kisses. She watches way too many TV shows and loves to get lost in a good book. Her dream is to move to Narnia when she grows up. Or possibly Middle-Earth, if she’s allowed a very small dragon of her own.

Interview

  1. Tell us something about how you write? i.e. are you a plotter or a pantser? Do you have any weird or necessary writing habits or rituals?

 

Hmm, plotter or pantser…? I think I’m a little bit of both. When I first started writing, I used to obsessively plot every inch of a novel – this worked as a ‘safety net’ of sorts. I knew that as long as I stuck to my road map, I’d get to the end. Rigid outlines were a great learning tool for me. Over time, I’ve relaxed, and now I use more of a ‘connect the dots’ system, with main plot points set out before I start, but wriggle room to go ‘off road’ when and where I want.

As for writing habits, I’m pretty easy. I don’t have a desk – I prefer to spread out at the kitchen table. And I can’t work with music on; I find it distracting. [Jamie’s note: Me, too.] However, I’ve learned by necessity to tune out my kids, though I prefer to work in the mornings when they’re at school.

2. Do you think people have misconceptions about speculative fiction? Why do you think it is a worthwhile genre?

I think a lot of people steer clear of the speculative fiction section of their bookstore or library thinking they won’t be able to relate. But elves, orcs, and laser-wielding space lords aside, you’ll find the same things in science fiction and fantasy that you’ll find in other genres: adventure, action, romance, intrigue… And new readers don’t need to jump straight into the deep end with epic fantasy or hard sci fi; they can start with something like space opera, urban fantasy, or paranormal romance – look how popular Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse novels are and not just with genre fans.

Personally, I love SF/F for the sheer escapism. I love to dive into someone else’s made up world and make it my own, even for just a short while.

3. Could you tell us a bit about your most recent book?

My young adult urban fantasy novel Heart Blade is the first book in the Blade Hunt Chronicles, a series that follows a centuries-old prophecy about four legendary swords. The story is set in present day USA, where preternatural creatures like vampires, werewolves, and witches live among the unsuspecting humans, governed by a failing and corrupt Court of the Covenant.

4. Of all the characters you have created, which is your favorite and why?

I have a soft spot for my half-demon Camille. She’s a petite French Canadian succubus, and she’s surprisingly fierce and extremely levelheaded and an absolute pleasure to write. Camille lives to surprise, as everyone tends to underestimate her.

5. What is the biggest surprise that you experienced after becoming a writer?

I was surprised and delighted to find out how welcoming and supportive the writing community is – both the SF/F community and the kid lit world. I’ve made amazing friends over the years. Some are virtual friends I’ve connected with on social media or on forums I belong to and others I met at conventions and conferences. My writing pals keep me going when things get tough and cheer me on when good things happen. I couldn’t do this without them. [Jamie’s note: Other writers are the best.]

6. Tell us a little about your plans for the future.  Do you have any other books in the works?

Yes! Definitely! I’m putting the finishing touches on Night Blade, Book 2 of the Blade Hunt Chronicles, which will be out later this year. I have a couple of short stories I’m working on for anthologies, and I have a sci fi thriller in the early stages. After all that is out of the way, I’ll be ready to move onto the third Blade Hunt book, Star Blade.

7. If you could be transported to any fictional world, which would it be? Why?

Tough question! Perhaps Cinda Williams Chima’s Seven Realms – her fantasy novels are so beautiful! All valleys and soaring mountains. Or Myke Cole’s present-day world with added magic, in his Shadow Ops military fantasy trilogy – that would be an interesting reality to visit. I also love the setting for Elspeth Cooper’s Wild Hunt quartet, with its vast, sprawling lands.

Where can we find you online?

Website: https://jspinkmills.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jspinkmills

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JSpinkMills

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jspinkmills/

Amazon: http://hyperurl.co/9ufdbj

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33868453-heart-blade

Heart Blade, Book 1 of the Blade Hunt Chronicles

Teenage half-demon Del Raven wears a promise in scarred letters upon her skin. Now, pressured to make her first kill and seal her demon nature forever, she flees her pack and forges a dangerous partnership with young angel-blood Ash.

But Del isn’t the only one on the run from the demons. For seventeen years the Guild of Saint Peter has done its best to hide orphan Rose, a key player in the centuries-old Heart Blade prophecy.

The threads tangle, and soon Del, Ash and Rose find themselves in the crosshairs of an ancient war between demons and angels…and the hunt for a mythical weapon that could change the balance of power forever.

Excerpt

The SUV rocketed along the dirt track, right on the motorbike’s tail. The surrounding trees were a dark blur in the night, lit only by their headlights. Ash realized he was holding his breath, and let it out in one big exhale. Becca heard and chuckled.

“Apprentices,” she said, shaking her head. “So darn cute. Hey, don’t worry, kid. We’re in good hands. Your old man’s the best in the business. You don’t get to be Scion of the New England Chapter of sentinels for nothing.”

Ash would have protested, said he wasn’t worried, but it would have been a lie. Becca would have known; they all would. You couldn’t lie to a sentinel. Instead he gritted his teeth and tugged at his bulletproof vest. The borrowed body armor he wore was too tight across his shoulders. His whole chest felt too tight.

Becca drew closer to the stuttering motorbike, still trailing acrid clouds of smoke. The trees opened suddenly into a vista of dark fields, and Becca accelerated, throwing the car off the road. They ripped through the tall grass, stems slashing viciously at the sides of the SUV.

There was a sudden impression of approaching buildings, and then the side of the SUV hit the bike hard. The bike went down in a tumbling crash, the engine’s growl cutting out abruptly as the vampire fell head over heels to land on his back. The SUV skidded to a stop, high beams raking the black. The vampire scrambled to his feet and took off, Deacon in pursuit with his sword over his shoulder as Ash leaned over his cousin to watch.

Becca snagged her hunting rifle from the back of the car and turned to Ash and Jordan, still inside. “Well? You here to learn, or what?”

 

If you like what you’ve read, please comment below, or click the link to buy Juliana’s book.

My Publishing Journey, Part II: To Market, to Market We Go

Jamie Marchant Posted on by

Yesterday I published the first part in a multi-series on my experiences with publishing. You can read Part I here.

As I said in my previous post, The Goddess’s Choice, my first novel was published by Reliquary Press in April of 2012, and it was not selling. In October of 2012, Auburn University’s English Department (for which I work) sponsored its first writers conference, and I attended. One of the sessions was on marketing. This session gave me some ideas about what I might do to market my own book.

I am a writer and an English professor. I am also an introvert (as so many writers are). Marketing was (and still is) very much outside of my skill set and comfort zone. But I very much wanted my book to be read by people other than family and friends. If that was going to happen, people had to learn it existed.

In this session, I learned about blogs: starting my own blog and getting your book featured on the blogs of others. I attempted to start a blog, and I contacted about 1,790,983 other people’s blogs, asking to be featured for either an interview or review. Book bloggers with a large readership are inundated with such requests, but a few did accept me.

I also learned about Goodreads and Goodreads groups as well as a couple web communities that are no longer in existence. I got on Goodreads. I joined a few Fantasy fiction groups and a few groups for writers. In these groups, I found more bloggers looking to interview and review authors. I got myself on more blogs.

Making these requests to appear on blogs and answering the interview questions or writing a blog post for the bloggers who said “yes” ate at my time. I did sell a few books this way and garnered more reviews, but at such a slow rate that it took at least ten hours of my time doing this for every copy sold.

Another thing common in Goodreads groups is authors offered to trade reviews, meaning you read and review their book, and they do the same for you. I entered into quite a few such agreements, and I absolutely recommend against doing so. Most of those making these arrangements were self-published authors. (I hadn’t even heard the term “Indie” at that time.) I developed a prejudice against self-publishing that has taken me some time to get over. The vast majority of these books had no business being on the market. To begin with, they were riddled with errors. As an English professor, I may be more critical of punctuation and grammatical mistakes than most, but some of them were so bad they were unreadable. And punctuation was just the beginning of the problems with these books. Overall, they were amateurish. While doing this review swap, I read only one novel that I considered good, Serving Time by Nadine Ducca. You can read my review of it on Goodreads. I loved this novel, and my review of it is absolutely genuine.

All of the rest put me in a moral quandary. I didn’t want to write bad reviews in fear that the authors would retaliate by doing the same to me. But it felt wrong to give good reviews to terrible to mediocre novels. (This is why I recommend against putting yourself in this situation.) I compromised with my conscience a little. For the books that were too terrible to finish, I contacted the authors and told them I couldn’t leave a positive review, so I wasn’t going to leave one at all. The rest of the novels I gave better reviews than they deserved. Doing this bothered me, and I stopped swapping reviews after a short time.

Most of these Goodreads groups also have a special section where authors can promote their books. However, very few people ever read this section of the discussion board.

So with the advise I got on this conference, I put in hundreds of hours of my time and sold about a dozen copies of my novel.

At this point, the entire publishing thing might seem too depressing to even consider, but I promise the ending is happier than the beginning.

Stay tuned.

 

I’d love to hear your thoughts or experiences below.

My Publishing Journey, Part I: The Goddess’s Choice

Jamie Marchant Posted on by

I recently read a friend’s post on why she’d decided to pursue traditional publishing for her first novel.  (You can find it here.) After reading it, I felt inspired to discuss my own publishing journey in the hopes that what I’ve learn from trial and a lot of error might help smooth the road for other writers. Once I started writing, I found I had a lot to say, so this would be a multi-part series of posts.

I finished my first novel (with the exception of the one I wrote in high school) in 2004. The Goddess’s Choice was an epic fantasy novel 318,000 words long. I was completely naïve at the time and knew next to nothing about publishing, except that you needed an agent. I researched on how to write query letters, synopses, outlines, etc. I then researched agents and began sending my novel out. Mostly I got form rejections or heard nothing at all, but I got a few responses that said positive things about my writing and style, but told me that at 318,000 words, the novel was three times the acceptable length for a debut novel from an unknown author. One agent even requested the whole manuscript, gave me a lot of positive feedback, and told me that if I could cut it down, he’d like to see it again.

After about four years of querying, I decided I had no choice. If I wanted to get the novel published, it had to be shorter. I began what I thought would be a painful process of cutting the novel down. It turned out to be less painful than I imagined, and I managed to get it down to 178,000 words. I knew this was still 60,000 to 70,000 words longer than the preferred length, but I couldn’t cut it any further. I’m not a fast writer, so it was 2010 before I was ready to try again. The one agent who had wanted to see again no longer worked in the business, and no one else was interested.

I decided to give up on the Big Six (now the Big Five) publishers and send my novel to smaller presses who are often more flexible about what they will publish. It was accepted within a few months by Reliquary Press. I was beyond thrilled. The editor at Reliquary Press gushed over my novel. I felt validated and would have signed any contract he put in front of me. My husband is more cautious, and to stop him from bugging me, I wrote to other Reliquary authors about their experience with the press and researched contracts. Feedback from authors was positive, and the contract looked pretty standard, even a bit generous in its terms. My husband was still not sold because the contract said nothing about what the press would do to promote the book. I wasn’t about to let my long awaited chance at publishing slip through my fingers, so I signed the contract despite my husband’s reservations and waited for my book to appear.

(My husband was quite right to be cautious. There are a lot of scams out there that prey on authors’ eagerness to be published. If a publisher ever asks you to pay them anything, run. They are a scam. You do not pay publishers. They pay you.)

My novel was published on April 12, 2012. When I got my first author copies with my name on the cover and my words inside, it was a rush. I had made it. I had beaten the odds. I was published. I basked in the glory of the moment and waited for my book to sell. A few friends and family members bought it. I had a reading that I arranged myself at a local bookstore and sold a few more copies, but that was basically it. Reliquary Press did nothing to promote it. Nobody had told me that I was supposed to do anything, so although I had the books with my name on the cover, no one was reading it.

The Goddess’s Choice was my baby. I had put years of my life into writing it, revising it, cutting it, publishing it, and nobody was reading it. I knew I had written a great novel, but no one knew anything about it.

Stay tuned for what I did next, and please share your own experiences in the comments.

5 Tips for Writing Dialogue

Jamie Marchant Posted on by

Something I was reading yesterday slammed me in the face with how clumsily beginning writers are with dialogue, so here are five tips for doing it right.

 Tip #1: Know how to punctuate

Proper punctuation is so important because it is essentially invisible to the reader. They don’t notice it. Mistakes, however, will people the reader out of the story. Since little that is written for school contains dialogue, very people seem to know how to punctuate it correctly. I’m not going to go around dialogue punctuation rules here because on the site linked below, someone else has already spelled it out clearly. If you are unsure of your punctuation, please review the site. Anything the pulls your reader out of the story weakens your work and makes it that much more like they will throw it aside and pick up something new.

Proper Dialogue Punctuation

Tip #2: Avoid substitutes for “said.”

Like proper punctuation, “said” is practically invisible to the reader. Other words to indicate dialogue draw more attention to themselves. If you are going to use a tag other than “said,” make sure you have a good reason for doing so and the word you choose comments on how the dialogue was said, such as “whispered” or “shouted.” Never use tags other than “said” simply for variety. Words like “added,” “announced,” “stated,” “claimed,” etc. draw attention to themselves, and you want to the reader to play attention to your story, not your tags.

Tip #3: Tags can sometimes be left out

While you never want it to be unclear who is speaking, when you have a dialogue between two people, you can tag at the beginning and then simply starting a new paragraph to change speakers will let your reader know who is talking. However, if the dialogue goes on for awhile, you will want occasional tags so that your reader doesn’t get lost. Read the following bit of dialogue from The Ghost in Exile:

The Ghost grunted, “Do you have a job for me?”

Zotico’s eyes gleamed. “Do I ever! I’d nearly despaired of finding a capable assassin, but your fortunate arrival proves that Ares will never fail those who serve his name.”

“Who do you want dead?”

“I think it would be best explained by the one in need of Ares’s assistance, but I assure you it is your sort of kill. May I tell the client you’ll meet?”

The Ghost nodded.

Because the speakers were established in the first two lines of dialogue, I don’t need tags in the second two lines to make the speaker clear. Pages and pages of this type of dialogue becomes tedious, but sometimes leaving out a tag is good thing.

Tip #4: Indicate speaker with actions rather than tags

Rather than using tags all of the time to indicate speaker, you can include the dialogue in a paragraph where the characters does something. Examine the following dialogue, also from The Ghost in Exile:

Passing an alley, he heard a commotion. He turned to see a young woman pleading with two men. “Don’t make me go with him,” she begged. “He hurts me.” The Ghost recoiled when he heard her Massossinan accent. He hated Massossinans.

The first man slapped her across the face, and The Ghost saw the iron slave collar around the woman’s neck. Her red hair confirmed her nationality. She wore a low-cut, red bodice trimmed with black lace and an extremely short red skirt. She had to be freezing in this weather. “You’ll do as you’re told and like it, or . . .” He drew a knife and ran it across her right breast, drawing a thin line of blood.

The second man grabbed the woman. “You know you like it rough.” He too drew a knife. “Maybe I’ll slice you open when I’m through with you.”

“That will cost you extra,” the first man warned.

The second man shrugged. “I’m good for it.”

He imagined his daughter being similarly assaulted. He stepped into the alley. “Let her go.”

The man pulled the woman closer to him. “You can have a turn when I’m done with her.” He grabbed the woman’s breast, and she tried to squirm away. She looked older than he’d thought at first, nearly thirty—old for a whore. Most didn’t live that long.

The Ghost drew his sword and stepped forward. “I said let her go.”

The woman’s master stepped between The Ghost and the other man. “Mister, you have no right to interfere with lawful commerce. She’s mine, and I’ll do with her as I see fit.”

“Not tonight you won’t. Move aside.”

It must have been too dark for the man to see the menace in The Ghost’s eyes. Few men dared stand up to him after they’d gotten a good look at the coldness he held there. The slave owner, however, crossed his arms. “Go away.”

You will notice that some of the lines of dialogue are tagged, but many of them simply tell what the character did, such as “grabbed the woman” or “drew his sword.” Using action rather than tags creates a more dynamic scene. People generally don’t talk in a vacuum. They do something while they are talking.

Tip #5: Use variety (to a point)

Using different ways to indicate the speaker can keep a scene more lively, but getting too creative about tagging calls attention to it. Make sure you have good reasons for what you do in tagging, and don’t simply try to be clever. The reader will notice if you do and won’t thank you for it.

Keep the above in mind, but remember the only absolute rule in writing is “Does it work?” If it works, a piece of writing can break every rule in the book. Of course, whether or not something works is subjective, so it is better to learn the rules of good writing and only break them when you have a good reason for doing so.

Sin Eater Release Tour and Giveaway

Jamie Marchant Posted on by
Sin Eater
The Aria Knight Chronicles Book 1
By Alesha Escobar and Samantha Lafantasie
Genre: Fantasy, Paranormal
Aria Knight has an unusual set of skills: she will hold back the hounds of
Hell so you can fly toward the Pearly Gates, and she will wipe your
slate clean so that you don’t become karma’s bitch…for a price.

A Sin Eater has to make a living in today’s world somehow.
But when she’s called in the dead of night to perform her rite for a
recluse billionaire, she stumbles upon a murder scene, and the
evidence points to her.
In an attempt to clear her name and uncover the true culprit, Aria is
forced to team up with a private investigator who’s possessed by
three spirits, and a handsome wizard who would rather see all Sin
Eaters like Aria go extinct.
Aria knows her job is never easy, but now it’s become downright
deadly.
SIN EATER is the first book of the Aria Knight Chronicles by USA Today
bestselling author Samantha LaFantasie and Alesha Escobar, author of
the bestselling Gray Tower Trilogy.
**.99 on Amazon!!**
I’m a caffeine addict and chocoholic who enjoys reading and writing
engaging stories, loveable (and not-so loveable) characters, and
expressing my creativity daily. I write fantasy with intriguing
characters, action-packed scenes, and always throw in a good dash of
humor and romance.
Science Fiction and Fantasy are
my favorite genres, but I also adore the classics (Shakespeare, Dante
Alighieri, etc.) and I have a soft spot in my heart for Victorian
poetry. You can geek out with me all-day every day over these
Some of my favorite contemporary
fantasy authors are George R.R. Martin, Robert Jordan (rest in
peace), J.K. Rowling, Neil Gaiman, Jim Butcher (Dresden Files made me
love Urban Fantasy), and Ilona Andrews among others. I enjoy movies
and shows like Sleepy Hollow, Supernatural, Arrow, The Flash, The
Avengers…there are too many to name!
I want to read more comics and
graphic novels, please shoot a recommendation or two my way (I LOVE
the Hellblazer comics, by the way).
Please don’t be a stranger–I
want you to kick up your feet, sip your coffee (or tea) and join in
on my weekly rants, discussions, and updates.
Follow the tour HERE
for exclusive excerpts and a giveaway!

A. M. Hounchell and the Weirdly Funny

Jamie Marchant Posted on by

Meet my guest today, A. M. Hounchell, who writes weird (I mean this is the best possible way) and funny stuff.

I’m just a small-town boy living in a lonely world. I grew up in a Kansan town of 300. I graduated in a class with 62 people. I was raised by my grandparents, who took me in at a young age. Now I live with my wife, Grace, and our two cats, Kiwi and Swarley.

 

Interview

  1. Tell us a little about yourself?

 

I have exactly all my toes. That seems like a little bit about me.

2. What made you want to become a writer?

If I were to try to trace it back to when I first picked up a pen, I’d say my lack of friends. My lack friends when I was in kindergarten forced me to write my own friends and create my own rules. Then it just evolved from there. Until one day, I made friends because of my desire to create worlds.

3. Titles have always been extremely difficult for me. How do you come up with yours?

I ask myself, “Is this pun or play on words?” If the answer is no, I continue searching for a different title. Though the titles come first sometimes. It’s like they come to me wanting to adopt a plot. Like the title Psychobotomy. Still don’t know what I’m doing with that.

4. Do you have a day job in addition to being a writer?  If so, what do you do during the day?

Somehow, I have a job in sales. I sell diamonds in the day and write diamonds in the rough at night. I don’t know how it happened either, so asking me is futile.

5. Tell us a little about your plans for the future.  Do you have any other books in the works?

I have 28 different ideas at different stages of completion. While I am writing those ideas, I’m planning on searching for a traditional publisher. But one of my main goals is to finish a single trilogy.

6. If you could shift into any animal, which would you chose? Why? If you were going to be permanently changed into an animal? Would you still pick the same one? Why or why not?

Komodo dragon because they are going extinct. They are also cool lizards with the word dragon in their name. Their saliva is basically stomach acid. That would make me an acid spitting island dragon! Doesn’t that sound awesome!

I wouldn’t want to be a Komodo dragon forever. A lizard is a creature to be for a day rather than forever. Plus, I would never last in the sun; I have that pale vampire skin that wouldn’t translate into a predator. All the other dragons would just call me ghost and hurt my feelings. I don’t want to be a mopey dragon.

7.  You’re in a tavern, and a dwarf challenges you to a duel. What do you do? What you do the same thing if the challenger were an ogre? Why or why not?

See the thing is, dwarves are very smart, so I would probably apologize and offer to buy him a drink in hopes of extending peace. On top of that, dwarves can live quite a bit longer than humans, which means he could potentially terrorize me for a long period.

As for the ogre, they aren’t very smart; they don’t live as long and are basically just the Hulk in a loin cloth. In that case, a drink might take too long for his tiny brain, so I’d offer a different challenge. I’d have to choose one that I could outsmart him in, and I’d hope for the best.

In either case, I would probably die. That seems to be the same thing.

Where can we find you online?

Blog: prosefessor.blogspot.com

Twitter: @inferno4dante

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/AM-Hounchell/e/B01LAHL546

Arrow to the Heart

Josh is a failure at most things. When he tries to take his own life from atop an overpass, he accidentally kills Cupid, God of Love. Now, he must take up Cupid’s bow and try to spread love through the world.

But when the light pink bow starts to turn a dark purple, Josh realizes that he has no love in his heart. Once Fate, War, and Death try to take over the world, Josh can’t dispel them with the bow’s love, but he can dispel them with the bow’s sharp arrows.

If Josh wants to keep the world safe from War and Death and an oncoming hell storm, then he’ll have to fight them with vengeance as opposed to love. He will have to continue to suffer, so everyone can live.

Excerpt

“How did you hit me?” The man said at first, but when he looked up at the overpass, his voice changed. “Were you trying to kill yourself?” The winged man asked. He stooped over to grab his bow, but let out a yelp as blood sprayed from his broken wing. The man couldn’t bend over far enough to grab the bow, but that was the least of his problems. For some reason, he kept peering into the darkness on both sides of the street.

“I tried. I failed like always,” Josh said calmly. His anger dissipated from seeing that the angel was hurt worse than he was. How could the divine even become injured?

“Wouldn’t that be more like succeeding to live?” The man said with a stifled laugh. “There is always a reason to live, even if it isn’t as apparent as you’d like it to be. Your body will find any way to continue.”

In a daze, Josh turned to a bright light, and he heard the distinct sound of thunder. Maybe that was his light at the end of the tunnel. “Is this your solution?” The angel screamed, but not at Josh.

Josh laughed. “Thank you,” he said, holding his hands up to the sky. Just before the light was absorbed into him, the angel pushed him out of the way at the last minute. Josh landed on his face. The angel exploded like a water balloon filled with blood. It got in his eyes and blurred his vision with a tint of red, and it tasted salty on his lips. There were fragmented body parts strewn about, but the bow was the only intact piece of the angel, and it was still laying on the opposite side of the road.

Josh bent down to pick up a broken arrow. He still couldn’t believe what was happening or if it was really happening. It was like he was a puppet. “What was that guy?” Josh asked himself. As if to answer, a shiver ran up Josh’s spine. A shimmering reflective pool opened in mid air and a strangely garbed person stepped through the pool.

He was wrapped in a leather coat with a hood drawn over his head. “That was Cupid.” He kicked a partial piece of hand and snickered. “To think, I’ve been trying to kill this bastard for hundreds of years, and he dies saving your pathetic life. I mean, what is with the power of love and sacrifice? By saving your life, he is only endangering everyone else. He should’ve known that.”

Use the comments to let us know what you think. If you’re intrigued, you can find the novel here:

Writing Tips: Character as Voice

Jamie Marchant Posted on by

 

Last week we talked about using image to present your characters. This week I want to discuss a second way of character presentation: voice. In the same manner that you tell from a couple of words over the telephone who you’re speaking to, your readers should be able to recognize a character from her/his voice. All characters should have their own way of talking marked by difference in diction (word choice), rhythm, and style. In addition to differentiating between characters, the words a character uses and the manner of her/his speech can reveal a lot about the person.

Blaine, who begins The Goddess’s Choice as an undersecretary in the library, reveals himself through his speech. When he is summoned by the princess, the chief librarian asks him if he has offended the princess. He replies, “I-I don’t know. I-I had no intention of doing so. I-I did see Her Highness in the clerks’ office earlier, but I did bow, and I’m sure I did it appropriately. At least, I-I think I did. I did it exactly as you said I should if I ever passed her in the halls. At least, I think I-I did.”  As you can see, he talks too fast, says too much, and stammers. With these few words, the reader sees that he is very unsure of himself. This is further emphasized when the princess makes him her secretary and asks his opinion of her plans for the king’s birthday celebration. He responds, “Well, I’m sure Your Highness knows what she’s doing, and if you like things this way, I’m sure it’s a perfectly fine way to have them. I know I have very little experience, and Your Highness must have a very good reason for having—” The princess has to cut him off to get an answer.

Even without attributions, readers would never confuse Blaine with Darhour. Darhour strikes terror into the new secretary with few words. He threatens, “I am Captain Darhour, the commander of the princess’s personal guard. Her safety is my responsibility.” Darhour speaking those few words causes Blaine to fear for his life. Darhour doesn’t need to say much to cause men to “piss in their pants.”

The villain of the piece, Argblutal, reveals his contempt for women by the words he uses to describe them. He tells Count Nola, “Everything about Her Highness is my business. I will marry her. No chit is going to keep me from the throne that should have been mine by right of blood.” And “chit” is one the nicer words he uses to describe her. His thoughts further the reader’s distaste for him. “The air of authority in her voice grated on the duke. His groin tightened as he thought about the deliciousness of teaching her a woman’s proper place. He imagined her naked and tied to his bed. Her breasts were a good deal smaller than he preferred. But as he imagined thrashing them with his cat-o-nine, no breasts had ever excited him more.”

To get a character’s voice right, you need to place yourself in the character’s mind. Inhabit the character and see what words come pouring out. Through it all, it’s important to remember your job is getting your readers to care about your characters. It’s impossible for him/her to care much if they all sound like carbon copies of each other.

Tell me what you think, or describe the way your favorite character speaks in the comments below.

Erinland Book Tour and Giveaway

Jamie Marchant Posted on by
Erinland
by Kathryn Berryman
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Two troubled young adults find themselves key players in a deadly game
that spans the 21st century and the Viking Age.

Amy, finding it difficult to ‘fit in’, becomes increasingly obsessed
with the virtual reality game Erinland. The VR characters and the
mist of Erin begin to invade Amy’s dreams and her waking moments.
She finds herself drawn into Erinland in 9th century Ireland. Amy
becomes part of this mystical world as she joins in the struggle to
defeat the Viking raiders.
Richard has a complicated home life and feels he doesn’t belong anywhere. A
series of events finds him desperate and living on the streets, where
he finds himself dragged into 9th century Norway by a Viking warrior.
Richard finds acceptance with the Vikings and joins them on a
colonisation raid to Ireland.
Kathryn is a Sydney author whose interest in history and mythology was the
catalyst for her debut novel Erinland to become a reality.

An adventure in the modern and ancient world, where the central
characters seek acceptance and self-belief, the ‘players’ in
Erinland find themselves in very different roles from their everyday
life. Choices they make could mean the difference between life and
death, with the consequences of these decisions reaching into their
‘real’ lives.
Written in the Fantasy genre, Book I bridges the ages, drawing on
contemporary life and 9th Century history to create an authentic
experience for the reader. A visual writer, she explores the
mythologies of ancient Norway and Ireland, giving a tangible view of
everyday life and the impact of the Gods in these two
cultures.
Kathryn is married with three beautiful daughters. Amidst busy family life,
she studied at University to become a Primary school teacher. When
she is not teaching, she loves to write and dabble in other creative
pursuits such as painting and drawing. She and her husband hope to
realise their dream and move to the country one day – soon.
Follow the tour HERE
for exclusive excerpts and a giveaway!

The Chocolatier’s Wife

Jamie Marchant Posted on by

How can you not like a novel that mixes fantasy with chocolate? Enter Cindy Lynn Speer’s strange world and enter to win a $50 Amazon gift card below.

ROMANCE, MAGIC, MYSTERY…. AND CHOCOLATE

 

A truly original, spellbinding love story, featuring vivid characters in a highly realistic historical setting.

 

When Tasmin’s bethrothed, William, is accused of murder, she gathers her wind sprites and rushes to his home town to investigate. She doesn’t have a shred of doubt about his innocence. But as she settles in his chocolate shop, she finds more in store than she bargained for. Facing suspicious townsfolk, gossiping neighbors, and William’s own family, who all resent her kind – the sorcerer folk from the North — she must also learn to tell friend from foe, and fast. For the real killer is still on the loose – and he is intent on ruining William’s family at all cost.

 

 

TMarried to her soul mate, the chocolatier William, Tasmin should not have to worry about anything at all. But when her happily ever after is interrupted by the disappearance of the town’s wise woman, she rushes in to investigate. Faced with dangers, dead bodies, and more mysterious disappearances, Tasmin and William must act fast to save their town and themselves – especially when Tasmin starts to be haunted by a most unwelcome ghost from her past…literally.

 

The Chocolatier’s Ghost is an enchanting sequel to Cindy Lynn Speer’s bestselling romantic mystery, The Chocolatier’s Wife.

 

Excerpt

Time was, in the kingdom of Berengeny, that no one picked their spouses. No one courted—not officially, at any rate—and no one married in a moment’s foolish passion. It was the charge of the town Wise Woman, who would fill her spell bowl with clear, pure water; a little salt; and the essence of roses, and rosemary, and sage. Next, she would prick the finger of the newborn child and let his or her blood drip into the potion. If a face showed in the waters, then it was known that the best possible mate (they never said true love, for that was the stuff of foolish fancy) had been born, and the Wise Woman could then tell where the future spouse lived, and arrangements were made.

For the parents of William of the House of Almsley, this process would turn out to be less than pleasant.

The first year that the baby William’s finger was pricked and nothing showed, the Wise Woman said, “Fear not, a wife is often younger than the husband.”

The second, third, and even fifth year she said much the same.

But you see, since the spell was meant to choose the best match—not the true love—of the heart the blood in the bowl belonged to, this did not mean, as years passed, that the boy was special. It meant that he would be impossible to live with.

On his seventh birthday, it seemed everyone had quite forgotten all about visiting the Wise Woman until William, who knew this of long habit to be a major part of his day–along with cake, a new toy, and a new set of clothes–tugged on his mother’s skirt and asked when they were going. She stared at him a long moment, tea cup in hand, before sighing and calling for the carriage. She didn’t even bother to change into formal clothes this time, and the Wise Woman seemed surprised to see them at all. “Well, we might as well try while you’re here,” she said, her voice obviously doubtful.

William obediently held out the ring finger on his left hand and watched as the blood dripped into the bowl. “She has dark brown eyes,” William observed, “and some hair already.” He shrugged, and looked at the two women. “I suppose she’ll do. I’m just glad ‘tis over, and that I can go on with my life.”

“For you, perhaps,” his mother said, thinking of what she would now have to accomplish.

“Do not fret, mother, I shall write a letter to the little girl. Not that she can read it, anyway.” He petted his mother’s arm. He was a sweet boy, but he was always charging forward, never worrying about feelings.

The Wise Woman rolled out an elegantly painted silk map of the kingdom and all its regions, his mother smoothed the fabric across the table, and then the Wise Woman dipped a brass weight into the bowl. Henriette, William’s mother, placed her hands on William’s shoulders as the Wise Woman held the weight, suspended, over the map.

Henriette held her breath, waiting to see where it would land. Andrew, her younger son, had his intended living just down the street, which was quite convenient. At least they knew what they were getting into immediately.

The plumb-bob made huge circles around the map, spinning and spinning as the Wise Woman recited the words over and over. It stopped, stiffly pointing toward the North.

“Tarnia? Not possible, nor even probable. You must try again!”

For once, William’s mother wasn’t being stubbornly demanding. Tarnia, a place of cruel and wild magic, was the last place from whence one would wish a bride. They did not have Wise Women there, for anyone could perform spells. The Hags of the North ate their dead and sent the harsh winter wind to ravage the crops of the people of the South. Five hundred years ago, the North and the South had fought a bitter war over a cause no one could quite remember, only that it had been a brutal thing, and that many had died, and it led to the South losing most of its magic. Though the war was long over and the two supposedly united again, memory lingered. “I have cast it twice.” The Wise Woman chewed her lower lip, but therewas naught else she could do.

“Not Tarnia, please?” Henriette, usually a rather fierce and cold woman, begged.

“I am afraid so.” The Wise Woman began cleaning up; her shoulders set a little lower. “I am sorry.”

William, staring out the window at the children playing outside, couldn’t care less. What did it matter where anyone was from? She was a baby, and babies didn’t cause that much trouble.

“Only you, William,” his mother said, shaking her head. “Why can you not do anything normal?”

This was to be the tenor of most of their conversations throughout their lives.

Author Bio

Cindy Lynn Speer has been writing since she was 13.  She has Blue Moon and Unbalanced published by Zumaya.  Her other works, including The Chocolatier’s Wife (recently out in an illustrated hardcover to celebrate its 10th anniversary) and the Chocolatier’s Ghost, as well as the short story anthology Wishes and Sorrows.  When she is not writing she is either practicing historical swordsmanship, sewing, or pretending she can garden.  She also loves road trips and seeing nature.  Her secret side hobby is to write really boring bios about herself.  You can find out more about her at www.cindylynnspeer.com, or look for her on Facebook (Cindy Lynn Speer) and Twitter (cindylynnspeer).

https://www.amazon.com/Cindy-Lynn-Speer/e/B001JOVNP2

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