RP Games is a small company, so this doesn't happen often. As per their own post, here's their open call for submissions. For those not familiar with the terminology, a company like that usually has work done by assigned people, like me, but they find those people by doing an open call for submissions. Start by emailing the address and you'll get more specifics on what they're looking for. The rate is fair. Not great, not bad. I can't say how it compares with my rate, but it's fair. Here's the post as it's appeared so far.

**Call for Submissions**

Rossi Publishing Games is a micro-publishing company that specializes in table top roleplaying games and we're looking to expand our line up. I can't do it alone.

We pay a base 5 cents a word and payment is made on publication (a long wait is possible).

Do you have experience creating spells, magic items, and game mechanics for a tabletop role playing game? Do you have a good sense of humor and an overactive imagination? Have you actually read this far because you're interested in submitting game data?

Send a short sample (under 500 words) of a spell or magic item for a d20 based game and tell me why I should care. carl(a)RossiPublishingGames.com

Please take a moment to look over our website or our Classes Guide on Paizo's website.

I'll also add the URL to what he's talking about here.

What happens is he takes a look at your submission (you'll get an email explaining this provided he hasn't changed how he worked it for me) and then when he needs something he matches a few people up with what they sent and asks them to submit something. He'll look over those submissions and select the one that works best. Kapeesh? Good luck.

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As you can tell from the title, I have little boys in my family.

Sometimes a writer’ll use different terms than her publisher, even though they mean the same thing. It’s not that one term will always be on the publisher’s side and the other always on the writer’s side, but English being what it is, there’s almost always one word that means exactly the same thing as another.

And that gets even more possible when you add in the fact that English likes to go through other languages’ pockets looking for loose change. (Not my comparison btw). This bring me to today’s topic. When my publisher first said that A Ship Called Hope was a Bildungsroman, I thought he was saying he didn’t like it. The term comes from German and means “book about formation” or “book of education.” This is why I don’t speak German.

It’s used for novels that’re about a person’s formative years or spiritual development. And well, the current books I’m working on are definitely about that for Sajani. It’s been a fun trip for me, watching a character I’ve come to admire and love going through the events that’ll make her the kind of person she’s become. I thought I’d talk today a little bit about those elements and some of the things I think of as being important to, what I’ve always called, a coming of age story.

Now, it’s pretty easy for me to do the first part. You need to know where that character is going. While it’s possible to work the other direction and start with the base character, I prefer to take this step first. You need to know how far that person is going to need to travel and if the way ends up being too long, you might end up with three books instead of one…um… yeah, just like I did anyway. So sue me.

In the end, and this is true of almost all novels anyway, the character needs to end up a better person or at least better suited to her environment, than when she started. While there are notable exceptions to this rule (think those awful Star Wars prequel movies), you’ll find that you appeal to the broadest audience when your character advances rather than falls.

A side note here that maybe I’ll touch on next week: a character that falls from grace can make a really great story. Don’t get me wrong by what I’m saying previously. I’m concentrating mostly on a coming of age story. The rule of moving forward still applies in a regressive tail, but it’s done in a different way.

Important things to note when developing the final character: she doesn’t have to be noble or great or honorable or anything noteworthy. She only needs to have progressed from where she was and, become a better person. A Bildungsroman is about progress and education, not so much about a final destination. In the case of my books, I had something pretty concrete to work with, but Sajani still continues to progress as the novels go on. People like to see that.

Next I look at how far back I want the character to go. A lot of this depends on the length of the story you’re telling. The first coming of age story I remember reading was called “The Apprentice.” It was a really cheesy and preachy story of the kind I now thoroughly despise…. Ahem… It was a heartwarming story about a young girl who learns about the challenges her parents are going through by having to find her missing dog. The story doesn’t show so much of a major progress to adulthood as it did a realization that she already knew something, just wasn’t applying as broadly as she could.

So the change doesn’t have to be huge or earth shattering; you just need to know how long it’ll take. The more drastic the change, the more suddenly traumatic or more development over time the change will require. Remember what I said about pacing? Pacing becomes even more important in something like a Bildungsroman than it does in an adventure. Instead of action, you’re often using change to move the story along. I use both, but not all stories in this genre do.

A final note I’ll touch on as a way to help in this area: I’ll go into more detail on this in a later post, but a literary foil helps a lot. A literary foil is a character, prop, or setting used in a story to add contrast to the behaviors and/or feelings, or climate of another character, place or item. White will look it’s whitest when there is black behind it and visa versa. Artists use the concept all the time and so do writers. Instead of using colors, the writer uses behavior or characteristics to make the flaws of another character in the story stand out. In A Ship Called Hope, I use Gregor, someone who is just an all-around good person with very simple wants and desires, to show just selfish and petty Sajani is at that age. The truth is that Sajani isn’t that bad. I didn’t want her to be the opposite of what she’ll become, but I use Gregor’s character to make her look worse than she actually is.

I hope this helps people wanting to write their own Bildungsroman. It’s a very popular genre and one of the most profitable. I’ll probably touch some more on it in future posts, but this is a good start. Like the topic of immersion that I keep referencing and never fully talk about, it’s a broad topic that’s impossible to cover in less than about 10k words. I like to keep these under 1k.

Thanks again to my few followers. I can never say that enough. You’re all the best and keep me going. I try to make these entertaining and showcase a bit of my unique personality while educating writers in an open and friendly manner. There’s too much totalitarian dogma and angst in the writing community and while that’s fine for some, I think it’s a breath of fresh air at times to get something else.

If you have suggestions for future topics, you can DM me through the site, or contact my publisher through Twittered realRPGames or Parler RPGames. There’s a Facebook page too, but I don’t know it. Look for Terah maybe.

I don’t really have any definite plans from week to week, so I’m always open.

Oh and my publisher will be at Magaplex Online. His panel is on Friday at 1:30pm. He’s not as entertaining as I am, but he is pretty knowledgeable about publishing.

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One strange question I get often is (and I’m not making this up): “Are you a planner or a pantser?” Alrighty then… First off a pantser, when I was growing up, was a bad thing and it wasn’t something properly raised people did. In today’s world, it’d be a fast way to make viral news and have every news station showing everything, no matter how much it hurt the person that was pantsed, in order to thoroughly condemn the pantser.

Fortunately, that’s not what today’s topic is about. It’s about whether you should plan your story (planner), or just write it out and see how it goes (pantser). Now that sentence, for those of you that’ve been following me will notice, has a dangerous set of words in it. As soon as you heard them, you probably thought, “I can’t believe Chaaya is going to say you should or shouldn’t do something.” I’m not. I’m going to make fun of the people that say that. Well, sort of. I’m not going to be rude about it or anything, just point out why it’s not a good idea here to think quite so black and white.

Let’s start, as usual, with our definitions. A planner is an author that, either mentally, on paper, or a combination of both, plans out her whole story before she begins the process of writing it. A pantser is a person that works from a non-existent or minimal prompt and actively begins writing without having any idea of the ultimate destination. And thus we see, just from the definitions, the problem with the original question. On the usual spectrum of writers, very few are going to hit those two areas directly. Think of it like a volume dial or, if you’re too young to know what that is—think of it like the volume buttons on your phone or tablet. There might be a few that listen to music with it at the lowest setting and a few that listen to it at the highest setting, but most are going to fall somewhere in between and not everyone is going to want it at the same level. There might be some that like it right in the middle, but most aren’t quietest, halfway, or loudest. They fall wherever they feel comfortable.

That last line makes it sound like I planned that comparison out really well, but it just so happens that it fits exactly where I wanted to go next and I didn't know it would when I wrote it. People write in the combination that they feel most comfortable. Also, please notice that the first sentence of this paragraph very nicely explains how I write most of the time. I’ll get to that more later.

I don’t know anyone that’s a complete planner. Faux Scent and parts of Benayle’s Gambit are the closest I’ve come to complete planning and those are outline only. I found the biggest problem of planning it all out when I did Faux Scent. Let me be clear though: this was a problem that I had. Some might not run into this and planning might work out perfect for them. I got to the end of writing Faux Scent and it was only about 50k words. That would translate into about 125 pages in the format RP Games uses. No one wants a novel that’s only 125 pages, including my publisher. The email I got when I sent that the MS was ready was… enlightening. I was politely told that the contract was for a novel, and while technically over 40k is a novel, that word count didn’t meet his expectation. He then asked me a very pointed question: Did I write that entire thing straight from the initial summary? Well yes, I thought that was what was expected. The last email I got explained it very well: “It would appear then, that you didn’t leave room for inspiration.” (Interestingly enough all RP Games writing contracts now have a minimal word requirement of 75k and I’m told that after what happened with A Ship Called Hope, they will now all contain a maximum word count of 150k.)

And that’s where I think the 100% planner might be missing out. I suppose you can have all that inspiration while doing your outlines, but I do think there’s a good chance those people are still missing an opportunity.

My publisher has the copy of the magazine I’m going to reference, and I don’t feel like getting it, but this comes from issue 20 of “The Leading Edge: Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy.” Ray Bradbury was giving an interview and he was asked how he goes about writing a story. His response (and this is pretty close to how I write, but my name doesn’t carry the weight his does) was that he creates the characters and then puts them into a scene and watches what happens. In the award-winning short story “The Veldt” he says it all started with a husband and wife talking over breakfast where she tells him, “I think there’s something wrong with the nursery.” When that was said and he started running with the story, he had no idea what was wrong with the nursery or even what a futuristic nursery would do.

From that it looks like he was entirely a pantser, but from other things he said in the article, there is a measure of planning that he does.

So in my usual fun and roundabout way, I’ve covered the full on planner and an example of a full on pantser (and yes, I still cringe every time I use that term. Ug.) I’ll now delve into my writing process and how it’s evolved between the books.

The first book was The Wolf’s Pawn. (Odd side note because my journals are always full of these: the tile was Wolf’s Pawn, “the” was added by the layout artist. So yes, there was a typo on the front cover of my first book that slid through because it wasn’t looked at carefully (a mistake that I’m assured will not happen again) and the listing was changed in Amazon and other places to match the cover.) I was given character descriptions of Sajani, Benayle, and Simon. All I knew about Sajani was that she’d travelled on a ship at one point and didn’t like it. I also knew a major plot point of Benayle’s Gambit that I can’t mention here. I was told that Sajani had to get an airship and a crew and that the story would start just as the elves were invading Terah. I was given a copy of the Terah World Guide to read and asked to give a destination for the story. I said that it would involve taking out a major supply depot. I was also given a description of the cover and how the scene there had to work.

That was it.

From the Prologue to the Epilogue, everything else was filled in as I went. I added characters as I needed them.

So what worked? I had some rather robust and fun characters that randomly showed up and a natural chemistry formed between those people. I fleshed out Sajani’s backstory in the process. That includes Altaza and the whole Rhidayar Border Skirmish that wasn’t in any of RP Games' materials. Those characters and histories, that just grew out of me having fun writing about what happened as I observed, have become the backbone of the series. When it seemed appropriate, I hit the areas that I was expected to hit.

What didn’t work? Those that’ve read the book will notice that it ends very suddenly. There’s a reason for that. The original MS I highlighted to the publisher was missing something really important.

It was missing a plot.

Somehow in the whole if it, I missed out on the original supply depot storyline and it ended on Chapter 14: To the Rescue. Chapter 15 was added later. It’s also why the Wisp seems so much more powerful in the first book than it is in the second. I didn’t have a lot of time to work with. I was given a week. This, and what is now referred to as the “metal cat incident” is also why RP Games doesn’t have announced deadlines anymore. All hard deadlines are internal. They only release to the public dates within a six-month period.

I already talked about the method I used for Faux Scent, so let me just summarize here. What worked? This book has a much more intricate plot (by which I mean, it has one). Characters already had a history when I began writing, so I felt like they were a bit better rounded to begin with and there was less effort in developing them. This also set a record for writing speed. I did 15k words in a single day and the book was done in less than a month. (Might have been within 10 days, I'm not sure, but it was difinitely done within a month.)

What didn’t work? There’s no room for inspiration in there. The scenes tend to jump from one to another without a lot of “fluff” between them. The sections proceeding each chapter that highlight a character’s past, even though they fit the theme of the story very well and look very intentional, were originally done as filler. The novels are written on a shared file with the publisher and unfortunately, I didn’t think to save a copy of that first draft, so I have no idea what else was added later, but there were quite a few scenes added later.

And lastly I’ll cover the work in progress: A Ship Called Hope trilogy. This one is being done as a sort of hybrid between the two writing types. I don’t want to put in any spoilers, so I’ll try to be a little vague. I knew that Sajani left the school at the beginning, but I didn’t know that Gregor went with her. I knew that she’d eventually meet up with Farleesha’s caravan. (It’s mentioned in Faux Scent.). I also knew that she eventually boarded a ship and sailed back home where she meets up with her father. (Which btw, doesn’t end up happening now). I knew that the basis of the story was to put Sajani close to how she is in the future stories.

As I was writing the part about her leaving, I realized that certain events could happen that would bring Sajani’s character more in the direction it needed to go for a proper Bildungsroman, and I would write to those events. Events like that kept coming up constantly. In addition, Benayle showed up and with him the entire subplot that ends in Benayle’s Gambit. Again with that one, I’d realize there had to be specific stopping points as I went along. They weren’t pre-planned as in planned before I started writing the novel, but they were planned ahead.

The outside events that lead up to the story aboard the VMS Trigger are very finely planned out. There are even points in the later story where I map out where everyone is at different times, but the actual events are not planned out. The characters move through those background occurrences and I don’t know in advance who will end up seeing what.

So there you have it. It’s a little too soon to say what worked or didn’t work on that trilogy, so I’ll close up here. It has been a lot easier to write than the previous two books.

I hope this gives you some insight into the different methods of working a plot in a story. It should also give you an idea of how those methods can evolve over time with an individual writer. So the next time someone asks you if you’re a planner or a pantser, hopefully you realize that a good response is, “I’m still learning.” Four and a half books into it (not counting non-published stuff), and I’m definitely still learning. And here I thought this would be my shortest journal yet. For journals, I’ll always be a pantser. I think it’s more entertaining that way.

Thanks again to my few followers. I honestly do this just for you. I try to make these fun and light-hearted while avoiding the absolutes and writer angst you often find out there. If you have a topic you want me to discuss, feel free to let me know via DM or you can find the publisher on Parler: @RPGames, Twittered @realRPGames, or Facehead fb/TerahProject. He’ll happily relay your requests to me.

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Today I’m going to talk about passive voice in writing. This one is one that I hear people talk about all the time. A lot of times the discussion reminds me of a famous quote from Mark Twain in that it ends up sounding like “something that everyone wants to talk about but, no one wants…” to bother to find out what the heck it is.

So here’s an easy definition. When the subject of a sentence is detached from the verb: that’s passive voice. Normally in a sentence you have two words that you can write down and still have the gist of the sentence. He swung. She sang. They whined. Passive bucks that rule by hiding the subject of the action. “The tree was felled by the lumberjack.” The subject of the sentence is the “tree” but the action is performed by a noun hidden in a prepositional phrase, not by the tree itself. You can sometimes identify it by the use of a generic verb, like “was” or “is” followed by a verb that’s had “ed” added to the end.

In George Orwell’s 1946 essay, “Politics and the English Language,” the famous author makes a few assertations on what he felt was needed to save the English language from losing its effectiveness. Many of these habits have, thankfully, been corrected. In some cases, we might have even gone too far (see my journals on unnecessary words).

Orwell is often quoted from this essay as saying, “Never use passive voice.” First off that’s not a quote from his essay. It’s a quote from a random idiot on the internet. What Orwell said meshes much better with my general philosophy on writing. He said, “Never use the passive where you can use the active.” Notice how he doesn’t say you will never use it, instead he says that it should be used only when you have to use it.

I’d can also point out that Orwell is writing an essay directed at people who write newspaper articles and other types of technical writing. He mentions prose in a couple places, but the essay is directed (as you can tell by the title) directly at people writing about politics. As I’ve said before, writing prose cannot follow the same rules as writing informational works. You end up with bland and sterilized prose and lose the chance of any kind of artistic expression.

So why would something like this jump from news articles to creative works? Orwell hints at that but doesn’t come out and use a nice quotable sentence. In another essay (that I couldn’t find, and neither could my publisher when I asked him to help) Orwell mentions that passive can be used to muddle information—to essentially make it look like someone or something else is responsible for the action. I was really hoping to find that essay because I’m not sure I’m a good enough author to actually pull that off on purpose. At the very least you’ve set up a mental barrier on the action. While I doubt anyone is going to think that the tree in my example above was responsible for its fall, the person responsible, the lumberjack, is slightly removed from the action.

You don’t want your characters removed from the action. Sajani swung her sword in a high arc, causing a dramatic displacement of air as it severed the burning fuse. In passive it loses its effectiveness. The sword was swung by Sajani in a high arc, causing a dramatic displacement of air as it severed the burning fuse. I’ve changed the emphasis of the sentence from Sajani to her sword.
Now, what if, in the preceding events, it’s been a great struggle for Sajani to get that sword in time to be able to cut the fuse? Is it possible that I want the reader focused on the sword and what’s being done with it, a little less than I want it focused on Sajani? It is, and an established writer can use that as an effective way to show it.

I have noticed that the strict exclusion interpretation is slowly becoming much more relaxed than it was a decade ago, although I worry a little about what that might mean. Unfortunately, I’ve heard from more than one publisher (not RP Games) that a single use of the passive voice disqualifies a manuscript from publication. For that reason, the use of passive voice falls firmly in my category of things you can do as a writer but shouldn’t.

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Thanks for being with me today. I hope you enjoyed this little foray into writing and philosophy. Orwell is a hot topic right now, but that’s not why I picked his essay to talk about. I picked it because he’s one of the few that approaches it objectively. You can find the essay here. I will mention, just to make getting through it easier, you can mostly skip the examples he gives at the beginning. You don’t need to understand them. He’s using them because they are hard to understand. It’s better to refer back to them when he mentions them than to bother reading them.

As always, thank you to my few followers. You’re the reason I’ve kept going. There’s a shortage of non-authoritarian writing advice that’s without the usual author angst. Feel free to share the link. I’m open to suggestions on what to write on. You can either direct message me through the site or contact my publisher on Parler. He’s (a)RPGames.

Oh and buy my books! I’m better at fiction than I am at stuff like this. I’ll sign off with this excellent quote from the Orwell essay, “Look back through this essay, and for certain you will find that I have again and again committed the very faults I am protesting against.”

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I’ll start with a little bit of an apology. Last week’s journal mentioned a macro form of the topic. And then I didn’t really do anything with it. These journals are very much done as stream of consciousness, so I’m amazed I’ve written this many without something like that happening more often. That’s fine though, because at least with this one there wasn’t much more to it.

In addition to worrying about action taking place during and around dialogue, you should also be watching for action taking place overall in the story. As I mentioned last week, the amount of action will vary based on the type of story. The amount is going to be very much up to your individual taste, but the only thing worse than a scene written to be performed by sock puppets is an entire novel written to be performed by sock puppets. Once aware of it, you can find it in any book you read.
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Ok, so today I’m going to talk about an area of writing that the technical rules allow (I’ve seen it in many published works), but you really shouldn’t do. And now I hear you saying, “Wow, Chaaya, you keep saying that you don’t like to make hard rules for people.” You’re right. I don’t. And I can think of a few literary reasons you might make exceptions to both, but usually when I see these happening, it’s definitely done without thought.

Let’s start with a definition: point of view. Point of view refers to the placement of visual and audio cues within a scene, usually in reference to a specific character. There are three basic points of view used. First person refers to a specific narrator who is actually present in the story. Second person (I don’t think that term is used at all anymore) refers to a specific narrator that is verifying or explaining the information given. It’s not used in narrative literature as it’s more instructive than informative. Think of it like reading the instructions on a tax form. You do this and then you do that. It’s what I’m writing in now. Third person used to be the most common form of narrative. It’s a story told from the view of a narrator who is not present in the story and who never refers to herself. All my novels so far are from that point of view.

Ok, so that’s three different types of point of view. There are a lot more specifics you can add to them, but there’s no point for what I’m talking about today. What I want to discuss today is staying consistent in your point of view. First person is easy. If you change point of view, you have to do something to signal the reader or it’s complete and total confusion. If who “I” refers to changes (and it often does), it can’t make the change mid-sentence or mid paragraph. I don’t need to tell you that. The problem I see comes up because authors assume that because they’re writing in third person, they don’t have to worry about specific point of view. They’re wrong.

Before I get into why you want to avoid doing this, let me first make sure you understand how point of view works in third person if it’s present. Whenever you have a scene in your story, you should know where your virtual camera is placed. You’ll establish that in two ways: what is seen and what is thought. Let’s take a look at a set of scenes in The Wolf’s Pawn. They all happen simultaneously and they all end in the exact same place and time. We start by watching what’s happening to Simon. We see him working on modifying a punch card and we follow his action, hear his thoughts, and see what he sees. We know that he disguised himself as Mauro and is trying to get into a building. Just as he’s entering, he runs straight into Mauro and Filo. The scene ends there.

Next we go to Mauro. We see what he sees and hear what he’s thinking as he gets ready to leave his hotel. We watch through his job interview and as he tours his new workplace. This scene ends when he goes to leave and comes face to face with Simon in disguise.

The final change in point of view takes us to Filo. We see the job interview and tour from his point of view. We get insight into someone who’ll eventually be an important character. The scene ends with him standing next Mauro as the door opens and they see Simon disguised as Mauro on the other side.

Two of these three scenes were almost lost before the story was officially sent off to the publisher. I wrote them trying to decide which point of view I wanted to take. In the end, I decided that they all provided information and background that couldn’t be consolidated into one scene. The publisher made some minor changes to them and now they stand. There’s a definite break in each telling of the story (it’s a gear—a little gear placed as a break in the text.) Each section very clearly shows that the story is being viewed from a specific character. If that character doesn’t see it, the reader doesn’t see it. If that character doesn’t notice it, the reader doesn’t notice it. (Don’t get me started on third person omniscient. That’s for another journal.) We only hear the thoughts of the specific character.

Why so strict on this? Like using passive voice (which I’ll talk about next week), jumping from character to character within a scene stands a good chance of confusing the reader. In addition, it’s a way to pull your reader from feeling like she is actually watching what’s happening. Movies can get away with it because the viewer is the one established as the, well, the viewer—the one seeing the action. It’s not the same in writing and I see a lot of authors, new and established, forget that.

Thanks for being here for me. I appreciate the feedback and support I get from my small audience. Feel free to share links to my journals. I try to write about helpful things devoid of the authoritarian insistence and author-y angst so prevalent in things like this. As I mentioned in the title, you can break from what I’m talking about. My intent is never to exclude a possible literary device. I more want you to think about how you do things and make you conscious of the parts of writing that go beyond just putting words on a page. I’m reminded of the Pixar movie, Ratatouille. Just as “anyone can cook,” I believe that anyone can write. Talent is a wonderful thing, but even a prodigy pianist must first have a piano.

See you next week. As always, let me know if you have a topic you want to see covered either here or through the publisher on Parler (@RPGames).

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Last week I talked a bit about how to pace a story. It’s a common error among writers to spend more time than needed in some areas and less time in places that need more. It’s also a very “individual taste” thing but failing to attempt a balance results in a rather obvious deficiency.

Today I’m going to talk about something that I don’t hear much about from my publisher, but I do notice a lot when I’m asked to read people’s manuscripts. I haven’t heard a technical name for it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I guess the right name anyway. I usually call it dialogue and action mix and it goes right along with what I was talking about last week with pacing.

I define it as being the healthy combination of both dialogue and action to enable the reader to feel more like she’s in the story rather than just hearing the story told by others. It draws from something that I’ve heard my publisher talk about called “maid and butler dialogue” but goes a little deeper. Of course, mentioning that means I need another definition. Maid and butler dialogue is a hackneyed literary device where the author uses conversation to illustrate a concept instead of actually showing the reader what took place. It’s not wrong to do this. I shouldn’t have to say that really. I avoid saying something you do in writing is “wrong.” It is something that gets overused.

I could do a whole post on just that type of dialogue, but I’ll keep it to where it applies to what I’m talking about. As I’m writing this, I’m noticing that this topic draws from other concepts as well and that I haven’t covered all of those quite yet. We covered illusionary depth and suspension of disbelief. I touched on immersion but haven’t done a full journal entry on it. All of those concepts come together at this one point. It’s kind of cool, actually.

So we have two characters talking and telling us about something and they’re telling us:

“OMG! Did hear what happened to Lord X?”

“I did! His horse got a flat tire and he went spinning off the road…”

“…and landed in a large pile of shaving cream! I hear they’re still getting the suds out of his duds.”

The reader is sitting right next to these people, listening to what they’re saying. Notice something important here because this is the first part of what I’m focusing on. What are these two people doing as they’re talking?

Absolutely nothing.

I might just as well have written the scene for a couple of sock puppets. I don’t want to rewrite examples in these journals, because I want to leave the solution open to the individual author and not just create a template that gets overused. So let’s take a look at some of the things that help bring the reader more into the story.

• What’s happening around them? Candles might be flickering; books might be sitting stoically. They might be outdoors and there could be wind blowing or flowers waving or horses pooping… (Hey, I have little boys in the house. Don’t judge me.)
• What’re the characters doing? The dialogue makes it sound like they might be a little excited about this and it’s possible they find it funny. Describing what they’re doing as this happens can build a sense of urgency or change the whole thing to a casual conversation.
• How are they speaking? Oh my word… this one… I’ve seen so many writers’ groups trying to tell new authors that they don’t need to put qualifiers in their dialogue and should use just enough so the reader is aware of who is talking… My guess is: those are people that really like sock puppets. Qualifiers (like “she said” or “he said”) can (and should) do more than just tell you who’s speaking. How are they speaking? Are they excited, bored, sarcastic, hopeful, shouting, quiet, whispering, enthusiastic, sounding rote, tired… And the best part is: this can change during the conversation. You can use it as a way to reorient the reader on who is speaking, so she doesn’t have to go back to the last time you used a “he said” and then count lines. What those writers’ groups really wanted to say is to avoid the constant use of the word “said.” There’s no reason to use it every time you need to establish who is speaking since action and emotion can establish that just as well.


These principles also work well in long monologues. You can look at Sajani’s recruitment speech in The Wolf’s Pawn for a rather mediocre method of breaking those up. I got much better at it by the time I wrote the trial scene at the end of Faux Scent.

Ok, that’s the micro version of the topic, where we look at a very small precise example of it’s use. Now let’s look at the story as a whole. This is an area that’s going to be very individual to your style, the setting of your story, and the overall tone desired. Adventure stories will have a lot more action and less dialogue than a romance. (Boy did I learn that with Fugtive’s Trust).

In action sequences though, it’s important to remember that what is said or what is not able to be said, is an important part of what’s happening. One thing I learned in the Army as chaplain’s assistant is that people hate silence. It leads to what we called (I’m not making this up, this is the actual professional term for it) “the big download.” That point where, if you’re willing to listen to what people have to say, they’re more than willing to give us (another professional term… seriously… You think I’m making this stuff up?) TMI or too much information. This should play into your story. If a person is concentrating to the point where speech is difficult, this should also be noted as should those times where speech would be unwise. Just because no one is saying anything doesn’t mean that dialogue isn’t taking place. It might be internal or non-verbal, but chances are good, some form of dialogue is taking place. Mentioning those things adds a level of immersion to the story.

Well, that’s about it for this week. I hope you enjoyed this installment. Welcome to those that might have visited from RP Games’ Parler channel. I do these journals weekly and try to keep them upbeat and nonjudgmental. I also try to keep out the usual author angst. Shoutout to Youira, and XRiderX on FA, and Silver the 1 Wolf on So Furry: my three most faithful followers. Without those people, I’d have stopped these journals after only a couple of attempts.

I don’t have a definite lineup for next week, so if you have something you’re interested in hearing me ramble about, post it in the comments. If you’re from Parler and don’t want to make an account here, you can just ask Carl on the account there and he can pass it on to me at our biweekly meeting. Otherwise, it’ll either be a full entry on maid and butler dialogue or on using consistent point of view. I’ll hold out on immersion because it covers so many other topics.

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As I mentioned in an earlier journal, I'm working on a FAQ to go at the end of the next novel. There's this really annoying question that, honestly, I hardly ever get asked, but apparently someone else does. I think the fact it does get asked so often says a lot for how our media portrays the furry community. I've heard of some pretty strange stuff, I'll admit. I heard strange stuff while I was in the Army too, and I'd hardly call it an active part of their culture. So here's my answer from an author's perspective. While you're reading it I want you to answer for yourself: why did you chose the animal you did or even why furry at all? I'd be interested in hearing some answers, but as always, my ego isn't tied up in hearing responses. It's a personal enough question, I'll be surprised if I do get an answer.

Why wolves? Why not humans?

From what I'm told, this is the most frequent question the publisher gets. Please, please, please, quit asking it. Seriously. Just stop. To fully understand, you need to know the basis of the "steampunk" genre. There're a few different interpretations, but at its core you have a steam-based society. That's the steam. You also need the punk.

Punk refers to a counterculture--something that's at odds with the "normal." In other words, if you have a nice world where everything is gears and goggles and steam-powered gadgets, you still don't have true steampunk. You have to establish a part of that world that's off by itself and running at odds with the rest of society.

In Terah, that role is filled in many different ways. Sparks are not considered normal at all, partially accepted, but not normal. Atheist clerics are a new thing that hasn't happened during the time in the novels, but those are also very counter-culture. And the main thing, especially as far as the novels go, is the wolf people themselves, the vykati. Their culture is not generally accepted and is very different than the human cultures around them.

Without vykati you don't have the punk, and since the steam in that era isn't as established as it is in the game timeline (we're over 100 years before the game timeline), you'd end up with just post-industrial fantasy.

Besides, what kind of silly question is that? Is the next question going to be, why does Sajani like black armor? Oh oh oh, maybe it'll be: why does Ginger have ginger colored fur?

I always feel a little like I'm shouting in an empty room, but I know there are a few out there that might be interested in this, the only question is: Will they respond in time?

I got the draft layout on Fugitive's Trust just now along with an email saying that we can add between five and fifteen pages without having to redo the cover. The publisher is wanting to print answers to questions readers might have about the books. For example, "Do vykati keep dogs as pets?" or "What exactly does a National Alpha do?"

The book gets put in for a test run on Monday (20 July 2020), so you have until then. I won't take having no questions personally, so don't feel obligated to come up with something. There's no guarentee it'll be printed, but if you want your fursona name or first name and last initial printed with it, let me know as well. It's kinda cool when I can say, "Lady Sajani wanted to know..." instead of "Multiple people asked..."

It can be from The Wolf's Pawn, Faux Scent, or Fugitive's Trust. It can't be from the spoiler I posted on FA for the next Sajani's Tail book. You have to suffer on that one.

Also, if you've read the book and want to give a quick review of it, that might be cool too, though, I'll admit, I haven't asked if the publisher wanted that or not.

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Contracts and Writing

RP Games is run by someone that's paid close attention to different ways authors can be messed over by publishers and it shows in positive ways. I wasn't allowed to simply sign a contract. I had to show I'd read each clause by giving a summary of it, in writing (in part because that's how ALL my correspondence was at the time, but it worked to his advantage). There are areas that I *am* allowed to discuss (like how my pen name works) and things that I'm *not* allowed to discuss (like how much I get paid). ***Funny side note. He's let the word rate slip publicly or so his wife tells me.*** I'm allowed to discuss what I feel about the pay, but I'm not allowed to discuss specifics.

That said, there's the clause that talks about publicizing my books. Pretty much, what I do socially, is all up to me. If I decided, for some strange reason, that I wanted to do a panel at a convention (pronounced, "not happening in this lifetime) or wanted to do a book signing at the local bookstore (funny how that's pronounced the same way), I can put in the request to do it and they'll work the details for me. It's not a question of approval, just scheduling.

Well, posting parts of the book wasn't included, so doing that required an addendum, which was quickly signed. The usual, "Ok, just to be sure, let me know what you think this means" was answered with something like, "yeah, yeah, I get it. No worries." I read the part where it said I agreed to use those platforms to publicize things for RP Games provided yada yada yada..., but figured that couldn't mean much.

So, since I know that the publisher reads my journal posts on at least one site, I wanted to post in full (and contractually allowed) detail, why I'm going to say this.

It's not that I disagree, so much as it's a great opportunity to give him a hard time.

That said:

If you look up RPGames on Parler, they're doing a giveaway of my books.

Yep. That's it. All those words before it just to say that.

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Awhile back I asked my publisher to tell me the most common reason he rejects submissions. There aren’t many right now, being a small company, but he spent some time as an editor of a semi-professional magazine, “The Leading Edge.” At his peak there he says he processed over a hundred stories a month, personally reading about a fourth of those. They had a name for those stacks of stories: the slush pile.

They got submissions from mostly new authors, although a few names you might recognize passed him: David Brin, Orson Scott Card, Ray Bradbury, and Tracy Hickman. If you ever meet Carl, be sure to ask him about his time there. Ask him to tell the story about how they rejected a submission from David Brin.

The slush pile lived up to its name. Less than 5% of submissions made it to the editorial board and of those, 75% would see rejection. From what he says, they’d have printed more stories than they did, if they received more that were printable. Of the stories he rejected he says about 80% were all rejected for the same reason and in almost all of those cases, he could tell it was going to be rejected within 500 words (two pages by their submission guidelines.)

When he asks people to guess what it is, they almost all say the same thing: editing.

And they’re all wrong.

Most writers know they need to have their stories proofread, so he doesn’t see many with that problem. Minor mistakes can now be fixed with a right click, so it’s not as big of a concern to him as it was AND the story has to go through editing no matter what. He’s quick to point out that he will reject a story if the author shows a disregard for grammar and punctuation, but that’s not the biggest problem.

Those that read my last post know where I am going, but for those that haven’t and didn’t catch the hint in the title, the biggest problem he sees is pacing. This topic is one that’s a little more difficult to give hard examples, so I’ll take a slightly different approach. First, I’m going to define what I mean by pacing and then I’m going to give summaries of areas where a particular type of pacing is wanted. I’ll conclude with some comparisons regarding where it can be properly used.

Pacing means the amount of time that the reader perceives as passing regardless of the actual passage of time and refers to the interaction between real time in the reader’s world and the fictional time in the writer’s world. Ok. that’s kind of deep and kind of an oversimplification. Let’s say you put something in your mouth and it’s so hot that your mouth is about to burn, what do you do? You might want to get it out as fast as you can. Now let’s suppose you’re eating one of your favorite foods and it’s the perfect temperature, what do you do? You might want to savor it.

Stories have parts that’re similar to one or the other, but you have no control of how much time your reader is going to take reading a passage. Some are slow readers, and some are fast readers. You do have a little more control over how the reader perceives the passage of time: that’s pacing. I’ve also heard it called word-flow and rhythm.

The food that’s too hot example works pretty well on this. What kind of actions are you taking? Short and swift ones. What are you observing? Next to nothing else. And if you’re enjoying your food? You’re relaxed and restive and better able to observe the food itself as well as the world around you.

Scenes where you want fast pacing are going to have shorter sentences and shorter descriptions. It’s not going to automatically mean fewer words, although it might. A sword fight where every action is being quickly described--the focus is almost entirely on what those blades are doing and how the characters are reacting—that might be two pages long, let’s say. A scene where the characters enjoy the coolness of the slight breeze that blows across the river and where they have a chance to sit and reminisce about pleasant memories—could only be one page long.

Now without counting the words or the lines, which scene description is longer? If you guess the second one, you’re right, but only by one word. Between tone and action, the reader’s belief on the passage of time may be changed. If you guessed the same length for both or even the reverse, that’s fine too. Pacing isn’t something you have complete control over, but when you don’t put any effort in, it’ll show. I’d do better with a full palette, but these short descriptions hopefully illustrate it.

It’s easy to fall into the trap where you make all your action scenes pass quickly and all your calmer scenes take more time. To avoid the “calmer scenes take more time” mistake, you can make use of brief summaries. There’s a scene in What Once Was Eden (no spoilers here really) where Sajani and Gregor get in a water fight. You see the beginning and you see the aftermath. Why such a quick summary? Because I wanted to give the feeling that time passed very quickly. I used very few words to describe a long event.
Sometimes an action scene might need to be drawn out. Later on in the same book, Sajani and Gregor get into a duel. That’s not a “hot food in the mouth” scene. That’s more like an “everything slows down when you’re in a car accident” type scene. You’re told about every action, every breeze, and every thought that goes through Sajani’s mind.

I’ll wrap up by explaining exactly why pacing gets most stories rejected: it’s one of only a few areas where an editor can’t save you. An editor can edit out superfluous stuff, but she can’t write your story for you. Most authors emphasize the fast-paced stuff and forget that there’re times when you want to give a longer feel to your story. Even in a thriller, you’ll find the author taking some time for descriptions and emotions.

Steven King once described the difference between a short story and novel. He said that a short story is like a kiss in the dark, while a novel is like a love affair. A kiss in the dark can be fun but has nothing on a real love affair. A novel might go by like a whirlwind, but you want the effect to last beyond the pages and not be a passing feeling like the Chinese food you ate twenty minutes ago.

Next week, I’ll discuss action/dialogue mix, which is an extension of pace.

I hope you enjoy this series as much as I enjoy writing it. My intent is to give practical advice devoid of the “Wo is me, the misunderstood artiste” mentality so prevalent in writing communities. Talent is like being given one answer on a long test: it helps, but you still need to work and study to get the results you want.

Bonus question: Tell me in the comments how I used pacing in the journal itself, outside of the examples I provided.

Feel free to share links to this. No need to ask permission, I’m flattered if you think others might want to know this too.

And, in case you didn’t notice, these posts have been moved to Wednesday. It fits my schedule better for now. In a few months, it’ll probably go back to Tuesdays.

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Hi again everyone!
I’m continuing my series on suspension of disbelief with a few tips and pointers on how it can affect “mainstream fiction” and will even make a bit of a note of its use in nonfiction. I’ll make use of a few examples and hopefully help you see ways that using these techniques can elevate your writing in all genres.
Let’s start by looking at how I’m defining mainstream fiction, since I’m broadening the scope for this post. I’ve heard some people call it contemporary fiction, but that view is a little too narrow for what we’re looking at, since the term contemporary would exclude works like The Bronze Bow and The Red Badge of Courage, both works of historical fiction. So normally, mainstream fiction is fiction that portrays the world as it is, without magic and without science that is beyond its timeframe. Anthro fiction that doesn’t make use of advanced science or magic is also going to fall into this category as far as suspension of disbelief goes, since while it’s not really mainstream fiction, it doesn’t have the elements that make SF&F difficult.
So it probably sounds pretty easy to keep things believable in a setting like that. You’re probably thinking, “Chaaya, you crazy wolf, you’re just digging for additional journal material!” and in part you’d be right. *wink* I’m also including it because it’s something that I’ve seen author’s struggle with across all genres. By this point in the series, I’m going to guess that you now have a pretty good idea of how suspension of disbelief works. Taking that into account, I’m only going to cover two of the biggest culprits.
The first is characterization. Believe me when I say, I can write a whole series on just that. When you’re dealing with a foreign world, some things are assumed to be different in how your characters think and act. For instance, a vykati isn’t going to react to some things the same way a human will. In The Wolf’s Pawn, Fenther nearly gets killed by Sajani when he tells her that if she takes on the elves, she’ll end up dead just like her mother. This is supposed to be a cryptic scene. I probably should have given a little more explanation of what was going on, but I wanted it to be a kind of “huh, why’d she do that?” scene. The problem that vykati would have with it, is that it compares the actions of a living person with those of dead person. Comparing to a national hero, like Sajani’s mother, amplifies the mistake. While cryptic and even a little confusing, it’s easy for the reader to shrug and go, “must be a wolf thing.”
Now let’s look at it as if Sajani were human. She’d seem a little psycho if she just randomly tries to kill people over snide comments. Believable for some humans, but not believable for someone I’m trying to portray as a very skilled leader.
Avoiding this mistake is very easy: base you characters on real people. I’m not saying put real people in your stories, but by taking examples from what you’ve seen in real life, you not only give depth the character, you make her believable. Another example: Colonel Lahnk. He’s based on a chaplain that I met at Ft. Hood (funny side note, my publisher met him too and caught the reference right away). I have a lot of respect for the real man, so I’m not going to name him here, but I noticed the one time I met him that the cuffs on his uniform were frayed. As a sergeant, I wanted to correct him, but felt like the other NCOs that worked directly with him should be the ones to say something. I talked to one at his office and found that the chaplain was corrected constantly, usually multiple times a day, but didn’t care. In the whole of the US army, there’re only two chaplains at any given time with a rank higher than colonel. The chances of him ever seeing promotion were next to nil and forcing him to retire meant an awesome pension. There was no reason to care. He liked his job but wasn’t going to stress over it. Take that mentality and put it on one of the command officers I worked for, and viola, an interesting and, I think, believable character.
Alrighty, so now we look at the other common problem area: science. And now you’re thinking, “I think this wolf must have had some special mushrooms with her last meal. Didn’t we talk about science last week?” If you can get past his outdated cultural references, Mark Twain’s “Fennimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses.” (1895) is a great read on this. In it, he talks about how Cooper’s main character, Natty Bumppo, hits a nail on the head from one hundred yards away. Anyone see a problem with this? Bueller? Bueller?
For those that may have missed it, imagine you’re standing at the base of a goal post on a football field and looking at a fly on the opposing goal post. That’s about the challenge that Twain presents: “…this nail-head is a hundred yards from the marksmen, and could not be seen at that distance, no matter what its color might be. How far can the best eyes see a common housefly? A hundred yards? It is quite impossible.”
And I think, as far as suspension of disbelief in regard to what is scientifically possible goes, that example…
…hits the nail on the head.
Don’t hurt me.
The overall point being: you can get away with small discrepancies in fantasy and science fiction, but you can’t in mainstream fiction. Vykati might have better eyesight or a different culture, but you can’t change humans and the human condition and still be standing firmly on the ground of this genre.
And don’t think you can get away with it in non-fiction either. Even non-fiction, if presented in a readable format, is going to “fill in some spaces,” particularly in dialogue. (I touched on dialogue in a previous post.)
I hope you’ve found this helpful. Feel free to share the link and give credit. I write these to give aspiring authors a well-grounded source of information, devoid of the “woo is me, the misunderstood artiste” mentality so prevalent in self-helps these days.
Next week, I’ll be writing about something I’ve heard referred to as both rhythm and pacing: how to regulate the flow of your story to enhance the reader’s perception during different types of scenes.

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Last week I talked about suspension of disbelief in science fiction and how it can be tricky in a science-based world like our own. Today I'm going to talk about the nuances of suspension of disbelief in fantasy. I'll give some examples from my own work and from some other authors and I'll tie it back into the concept of illusionary depth that I discussed at the start of this series.
The issue in fantasy is that most authors seem to think that just saying, "It's magic and that's how it works." is enough to keep concepts believable. Since magic is a major part of fantasy as a whole, the argument has some merit, but relying entirely on that, makes for a weak story.
Before we go further, let’s take a moment and define magic in a fantasy setting. There are three major archetypes (and probably thousands of minor ones). The first is exemplified by Tolkien. Magic is a deep and abiding knowledge of the world around us. The power of the rings comes from someone that was unique in his understanding of the craft. Most of what Gandalf does has to do with knowing things and not any particular action on his part. What the rings do is part of their nature and that nature in some cases extends all the way back to the knowledge of their creator.
The second common archetype is magic as a science. This is different from the previous one in that, in this case, the thing being studied is magic itself. The best example of this is in common tabletop roleplaying games. The wizards in these study spells. Performing the words and actions of the spells in a practiced manner is what allows magic to happen.
The final archetype is inherent magic. In this case, magic is something that comes from within the individual. It can be trained and honed for greater power, but if it's not present in the individual, then it can't be performed. This is demonstrated in the Malorian and Belgariad by David Eddings. It also appears in the Xanth series by Piers Anthony.
I'm not saying the magic in your world has to come from one of three archetypes. It can be a combination of these or even one of your own making, but you need a background system if you're going to make your fantastic world at all believable. You don't need to go into a lot of detail on the system, but you, as an author, need to understand what's happening.
So let's take a look at the magic of Terah. There's actually a big long history of how magic works there (that I didn't write.) About three thousand years before the game's current timeline, magic was drawn from something called ley lines. (I think the idea came from Robert Asprin's Myth Adventure series.) The lines worked a little like ocean currents. They worked their way over most of the planet but could redirect or move slightly over time.
Enter the dwarves and their continent splitting magic. When the continent was sundered, all the ley lines were re-directed and completely covered the land mass in order to facilitate the division. When those cataclysmic actions ceased, the ley lines weren't able to redirect to their old routes and instead, like a persistent cloud, slowly fanned out and covered the world as a whole. The result is that when the arcane elves arrived, they found that their magic, which relied heavily on magic concentrated into ley lines was greatly weakened.
Those who have read my books will know: that comes up once in the two published books and nunce in the three coming out. Even when it does come up, it's in passing. All you're told is that magic is weaker on Terah than it was on the world the elves came from.
Ok, so now we'll move on to crafting fictional spells. The first, and most frequently used method is to take something people can do and enhance it. This keeps the magic believable because it's already something that can be done, but keeps it somewhat magical because it's done in a way that isn't normal. Levitation comes to mind. We can lift things, but we do it with our hands, not with magic. In The Wolf's Pawn, Sajani uses a spell to get to Benayle more quickly. Running is something that most people can do and objects moving fast enough that they can't be seen is also something that happens in the real world. I combined these two and have Sajani move quickly and be hard to see by her enemies.
An extension of that method is to take things that can be done using outside objects or have it done instead by magic. The penultimate example is a fireball spell. You can make a fireball. I'm not going to get myself in trouble by telling you how and I certainly don't endorse either specifically or by implication that you attempt to do that. In addition, I categorically deny ever having been responsible directly or indirectly for one that may have just happened to have occurred when I was nearby... ahem.. anyway. A fireball spell is a case where magic is used to do something that we could do provided we took the time and materials to create one. Another great example is the pirate ship Wisp. It flies using magic, but there’re things in our world, like birds, planes, and Superman, that can also fly.
The final method of producing believable magic is something that I call scaling. The more powerful the spell, the more that’s required to accomplish it. Let’s take a look at the largest and most powerful spell ever produced on Terah: the sundering of the Pangaea. History says that Krag III sundered the continent with a single spell. That’s supposed to be unbelievable. You should read that and go. Nah uh. The truth (as shown in the first adventure arc: Pebble in the Pond) is that a large group of stone singers using an extremely powerful magical artifact sundered the continent. This concept goes for all kinds of spells; take for instance healing. Sajani and Westa both cast simple healing spells. They tend to be nearly instantaneous and not completely effective. In The Wolf’s Pawn when Westa casts a spell attempting to regrow (redacted)’s leg and later to resurrect (redacted), the spells take a long time to cast.
Magic on its own is a great source of illusionary depth. It plays into the concept that there’s more to the world than just what’s seen and written about. You can see that’s the case in Terah, in part because it’s a game world and so a lot of the dynamics had to be worked out for different game and story purposes, but the concept is true in all writing. We’re not just telling stories. We’re creating worlds and forging relationships, whether that story takes place on Earth, Terah, or your own world. All writing is a form of magic.

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In a couple of weeks I'll be doing a journal on Suspension of Disbelief in general fiction. I'll be pulling indirectly from a "Wonderful World of Disney" episode (available on Disney+ last time I checked) called the "The Plausible Impossible." That episode talks about an out of print book called The Art of Animation (1957 edition, there's newer ones that I'm not sure have the same content).

While it's talking mostly about cartoon physics, the principles discussed go right along with what I'm discussing and go into a lot more detail than I can in my short journal posts. Maybe someday I'll get over my absolute terror of public appearances and do a panel at a convention or something.

At any rate, anyone that wants to be ahead of the class can watch that or if they're luckier with their Google-fu than I am, find a print copy of the book online for less than $300.

Hi lovely followers!

This will be the first time I post a journal on all three of the furry sites I'm on. Up until this point all my journals were only found on Fur Affinity.

I mentioned in my post last week that I was going to talk about something else, but I noticed that my posts about the philosophy of writing get a lot more attention than my posts about the technicalities, so I thought I'd take a break for a few weeks and talk about an area that I see doesn't get a lot of attention. Usually when I say "suspension of disbelief" to a fellow author, they can figure out what I mean, but haven't actually heard the term before. Ignorace of it shows in a lot of the stuff I get assigned to read through for RP Games.

Let's start by giving a solid definition of what I mean when I use the term. It means that the events, technology, character, and setting of my story, while not part of the real world, have enough detail and depth for the reader to suspend her disbelief and accept what's said as a very possible and plausible reality. This rarely applies to non-fiction and can be fun to do away with when writing satire, but for most works of fiction out there, it is very necessary. Suspension of disbelief goes along with illussionary depth. You could say it's a subset of that. Today we'll look at how that works in science fiction. Next week I'll talk a little about how it works in fantasy, and I'll finish up the series the following week by tying both together.

Technology is a difficult and touchy area because you have to guess just how much your reader knows and the more specific you get in the details trying to enhance your suspension of disbelief (SD), the greater the risk that the reader will find a hole. A good example of this is found in Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park. There are several huge scientific holes in what is presented, but for the vast majority of readers, there's not enough in their education to see through that. Even for those with that level of education, it can still be fun to remove some basic assumptions, but the effort then goes to the reader instead of the author.

Another way of handling that is used in Tom Clancy's Hunt for Red October, the movie version. The submarine, Red October, makes use something called a "caterpillar drive" (also known as a magnetohydrodynamic drive). The viewer is given a basic description of how it's supposed to work, told that the US wasn't able to get it to work, and that the Russians must have found a way to use it. (It does work, by the way, in real life, just not up to the size of submarines). This approach to SD works on two levels. First, you're given a real technology that is known and given the facts about its use and research. Having real scientific facts that people can look up on wikipedia is a great way to create a solid base for your story. It's taken a step further though and here's the technique I wish more authors would make use of when writing about science fiction (especially, for when I'm reading, on the biology end of things). You're told that a way has been found to get past a scientific shortcoming, but due to the point of view of the person proposing the idea, there's no way to know exactly how that was done. "They must have found a way." You don't know what way that was, but there had to be a way because you're seeing it. This approach takes the possible disbelief and handles it head on.

Yet another way of handling SD in technology is used so widely, it's barely worth pinning down to a single work. Call it something and don't explain it. A good example (among countless possibilities) is found in The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. In passing things are mentioned that go along with a steam based society, but the author doesn't bother the reader with details. How the heck would someone make a steam powered wristwatch? No idea, but it's still believable because everything in that society comes from having computer technology in the age of steam. If you haven't read that novel, by the way, and you like steampunk, you should read it. Several authors claim to be the "founder" of steampunk, but that novel predates all of them by a long shot. It was required reading (along with a few other books) before I was allowed to write for Terah. Oh and if you do read it, read it as if the box of punch cards is a character. That'll make sense at the end without spoiling anything.

Ok, hopefully this multi-post program works. If you have any questions, post them in the comments. If you want to tell me that I have no idea what I'm talking about... keep it to yourself. :P

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I had a meeting with my publisher last week. He had a lot of questions about my posts here. It turns out that he reads all of them (including where I make snide remarks about him like I am now. :P) He specifically had questions about how I'd be posting Benayle's Gambit, the last book in the trilogy. That book has a scene in it that has an impact on ALL future books and if accidently read out of order (which, I'll admit, is pretty likely when posted in series here), can completely ruin the trilogy.

So for now, it won't be posted in series.

As he is already aware, I disagree with that decision.

The book is scheduled to come out in Summer of 2021, so if all goes well, there won't be a huge wait AND as a consolation, he's agreed to allow people here to request to be alpha readers of the story. That would mean getting a pdf of the whole thing before it goes into editing. That's kind of cool, I guess. I'm having fun posting stuff, even though I don't get a lot of feedback. I'm grateful for the comments and attention I do get. :) Tell your friends. It's a fun story and safe for everyone.

Hearing the same name over and over can get old fast. That's why it's a good idea to have several ways to refer to your characters. This becomes particularly important for your main character. In Sajani Tails there are quite a few ways to refer to Sajani in addition to her name: Miss Adida, the copper wolf, the lady of rust, the former holy warrior, she, her, she-wolf, and the captain--just to name a few. Let me give you an exaggerated example.

Sajani picked up the old scroll and started reading through it. This had Sajani's first mate, Tess, showing a little rare concern. "Are you sure that's safe, Sajani? There're all kinds of traps that could be hidden in there."

Sajani laughed. No it wasn't the best approach, but Sajani was in a hurry and there wasn't time to be cautious. "I'll be as careful as you ever are, " Sajani said with sarcasm.

In less than fifty words, I've used the name "Sajani" six times. All of those might be removable. Before writing this (and a few of my other journals), I talked to my publisher about this particular issue. He was pretty blunt: it's a deal killer on a submission. To understand the intensity of that comment, you need to understand his view on a few other issues. Passive voice? If used properly, no issue. Occasional misspelling? Since it's usually just a right click to fix, he'll ignore a few of those. Typo? Again, as long as it's not in the title or more than a few, he'll send it to editing to fix and not worry about it. Plot hole? (This one surprised me) Provided it's small and only requires a little rewriting, it can be overlooked. I'll just quote what he said about it. "An author that can't refer to her characters in more than one fashion is a writer that's lacking the creativity necessary for continued productivity. I can work with her on other issues, but I can't make her more creative."

The sample paragraphs are poorly paced and have a forced sentence structure, so a name shouldn't be coming up that often, but to show that even something that rushed can be improved...

The copper wolf picked up the old scroll and started reading through it. This had her first mate, Tess, showing a little rare concern. "Are you sure that's safe, my lady? There're all kinds of traps that could be hidden in there."

The captain laughed. No it wasn't the best approach, but she was in a hurry and there wasn't time to be cautious. "I'll be as careful as you ever are, " the lady of rust said with sarcasm.

I intentionally had Tess in the scene so that there'd be two females and make the use of pronouns a little tricky. You can't just replace everything with "she" and have it be clear. In addition to avoiding confusion, the writer needs to be aware that, while pronouns are more "hidden" than most words, they can become repetitive and trite just like repeated use of a proper noun.

Hope that sheds a little light on something often overlooked. Next week I'll see about writing a bit about sentence structure. I'll see if I can get permission to post a story my publisher shared in a meeting about how that got him in trouble once.

I have a really busy day tomorrow, so you're getting my journal a half day early.

Last week I talked a little about the trend in writing workshops (not to be confused with a trend by actual editors) of editing out all the "unnecessary" words in your story. I used the example of "the very beautiful vase gave off a dull sheen in the evening sun" being shortened all the way down to "vase shone." (for those that didn't read the journal last week, know that I disagree with that type of editing.)

A more accurate way to express what should be done: Remove all disfluencies from your writing. What's a disfluency? It's a word or syllable that takes up space but has no real meaning to the story. Someone hearing this definition and not bothering to actually THINK about what it says probably led to the crazy idea of removing all articles like "a," "an," and "the." The reason you don't edit out articles is simple: they do serve a purpose. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on why you shouldn't remove them. I'm pretty sure if you're reading this, you either 1. Haven't heard this lunacy or 2. Already know that it's not a good suggestion. But here's a quick example from earlier in my journal. "It's a word or syllable that takes up space..." becomes "It's word or syllable takes up space..." No one talks that way.

But you probably do use words that're completely unnecessary: words that break up the flow as someone is reading your story. I'll give a couple examples. The first one was one of my most frequently used mistakes--the word "that." The second big one for me was not using contractions properly. Those two edits removed almost 25 pages of Wolf's Pawn. Folks, that's about 10% of the volume.

It's pretty easy to see where you want to remove the word "that" or other words like it. If you pull the word out and it still makes complete sense and doesn't change the emphasis of the sentence, then the word goes. "I see that the people are having trouble bringing the water up from the river." This one has a few possibilities. You can remove the third and/or the fourth word, depending on your style. "I see the people..." versus "I see that people..." or even "I see people..." You don't need both and you'll find that removing excess words like that helps your story flow. I'd edit the whole sentence to read: "I see people are having trouble bringing water up from the river."

On to contractions. I've covered those before. In English, people use them a lot without even thinking and because of that, it can make your writing seem stinted and strained if you're not using them. It becomes very important in dialogue, but it also affects your descriptive text. Like I've mentioned before, if you can italicize the second word, then it can stay. "I can't" versus "I can not" versus "I can not." The emphasis isn't required if you're going to keep it, instead it just gives you an idea if it'll flow correctly.

There is one other time when you want to spell out two words instead of contracting them. If there's more than say, three or so, contractions in your normal length sentence, you might want to see which ones can spell out the best. Like a lot of the guidelines I propose, this one can be overdone. Chances are good, you're not using contractions often enough, but they can be overused as well.

Another word to watch carefully is the word "had." Again, if eliminating it changes nothing, then eliminate it, but also consider changing your verb form to remove it. "I had a flower" versus "I lost a flower." Had is one of those words that's usually fine, but can be easily over-used as well.

And of course, none of this is required in dialogue. People add disfluencies all the time when they speak, such as "like," "um," er," and f-bombs. But if the characters aren't using a specific speech pattern, you can and should remove excess words so things are smooth for the reader.

Thanks for listening. If you have any topics you want covered, let me know in the comments. Next week, I'll talk about using multiple references for your character. That's one that I see a lot of writer's (including some published ones) struggle with. It's not hard; you just need to be aware of the issue.

Along with the removal of "voice" in writing is something I like to call "dumbing down" or as the US Army puts it: "soldier proofing." In this theory the author should remove all words that aren't necessary. The reason being (supposedly) that the average reader no longer has the attention span for your extra words. So "the very beautiful vase gave off a dull sheen in the evening sun" should really be "the vase shone." I was talking to the publisher's daughter one evening and she mentioned that she'd been to a "writers' workshop" where the panel actually suggested removing all articles from the main text... (articles are small filler words like "the," "a," and "an." With that in force, we're left with "vase shone."

Ok, I try to be positive in my posts and not get into petty insults, but... My publisher's choice of words: "asinine" comes out as being the mildest I can form for it.

There's a magic trick I saw performed once. The magician holds up a paper banner that reads "Fresh Fish Sold Here Today." The patter runs something like this: I told the grocer that the sign was much longer than it needed to be. If the sign was up, then it was obviously happening today, so I tore off that word. (He tears off the last word). And if the fish weren't fresh, we'd be able to smell it pretty quickly, so that word could go as well. (He tears off the first word). The grocer was getting a little agitated, but I continued forward. With the sign right over the fish, it seems unnecessary to say that it's here, don't you think? I don't see any reason to tell the person it's here if they're already here reading the sign. (He tears off that word.) By this point, the grocer was red in the face and unable to speak. I took advantage of his speechlessness and finished. And of course you're selling the fish. People are in a store, so they know you're not just giving it away. (He tears off the word in question and the sign is left just saying "Fish.") That got the grocer to find his voice again and he screamed at me, "I liked my sign how it was. I hope you're willing to pay for a new one!" I told him there was no reason for me to do that when I could just fix the one he had. (The magician shakes the last word and the words after "fish" unfold from below it, followed by him unfolding the first word from behind it.)

Tom Clancy? In Hunt for Red October he spends pages describing the sonar system used by the US sub and pages describing the drive used by the Russian sub. Were those unnecessary? You better believe it! The movie spends seconds describing both (because it's a movie), but the viewer still follows what's happening. But part of what many people like about Clancy and part of why he became famous was because he does get into those unnecessary descriptions of military technology.

Like a lot of writing trends, I can see where this one came from and the removal of unnecessary words is a part of good writing, but it should have nothing to do with your jaded view of the intelligence of your audience. I'll do a future post on unnecessary words and how it dropped almost 25 pages off my first book, but for now: use the words. :)

I don't do the Deviant Art website. I feel like I get lost there too easily and while I don't consider myself "furry," I do relate to this community more than I do more general art communities. (I'm told that makes me a furry.) I also like the fact that I don't have to keep answering the question, "Why wolf people? why not just use humans?" I'll answer that on a future journal post from the literary standpoint, not because I feel like I have to answer it here. In short though, you have to have counter-culture to have the punk in steampunk.

Back to the topic. DA recently rolled out a new interface and unlike how FA did theirs here, where it made quite a few obvious improvements, especially for mobile devices, this new interface um... sucks? Is that still a word or am I dating myself using it? My publishers page there just posted saying that they're staying, but wished they didn't have to.

FA seems to be the big furry art site. I'm experimenting with So Furry and Weasyl ("That's WeaSEL!"), but they seem to be smaller than FA. I like the format for writers on So Furry much better, but if there's no one there, it doesn't matter.

So while DA is going through their Eclipse Exodus, let me know if there's sites you'd like to see me on. I'm up for it. Eventually, they'll all be posting my stories in unison. There's an app somewhere that works for multiple sites. I plan on using that once I get everyone on the same part of the story.

I can't read the name and not think of a quote from a TaleSpin episode: "That's WeaSEL."

Anyway. I'm not sure I even want to go on that site given how it's starting, but So Furry also started out kinda bad and is getting better so...

I need someone to "verify" my account over on Weasyl. I'm there as Chaaya.Chandra. While I'm fine with places putting spam protection in place, this strikes me as being overkill and maybe a little too much on the kill. Might be worth paying Captcha.

When I wrote the first Sajani Tails book: Wolf's Pawn I needed a way for Sahiba, the seamstress that makes Sajani's new armor, to know a little more about the copper wolf without actually being able to see her, so I had her recognize an accent. She tells Sajani, "You sound like you're from the Varkyl Mountains..." The geography of where the pirate queen comes from is important to people that play the actual roleplaying game, but isn't really important to the story. I decided, however, to go with the advice of a random writing blog, and not put the accent into play in the dialogue, but just leave it mentioned as existing without being specific.

Flash forward about a year. My family is visiting my publisher's family. His wife asks me about Sajani's accent and wants to know what it sounds like. When I explained why it wasn't really planned out, my publisher chided me. He told me that when he'd first started in editing, he'd given a story a bad review over heavy use of accents. The Managing Editor called him in over it and gave him task. He was told to encourage authors to push the limit rather than shy away from it. He was told to try to fix it first and if it couldn't be, then that reflected on the editor, not the author.

I have no intention of putting in accents on the previous books, but it might show up more in the later books. You get a brief glimpse of it in Fugitive's Trust.

Accents aren't the only method of giving a character something unique in dialogue. The short story "A Type of Devil" that I posted about ten days ago uses a technique to develop two of its characters. The sergeant of the guard likes to start sentences with "Dah!" and Dore has trouble with the letter "h." Uniqueness in how a character speaks, while it should be used somewhat sparingly, not only helps distinguish the personality of a character, it also makes dialogue easier to follow. If one speaker keeps saying "Dah" and the other drops his "h's", we can easily know the speaker without intrusive speech directives. It's important to realize though that what you get used to as an author isn't always so obvious as a reader. If every one of your characters has a unique dialogue modifier, it's not only going to confuse the reader, but the effect is lessened by its overuse.

If eyes are the visual window of the soul than dialogue is the literary window of your character's soul. Both can deceive, but generally give an accurate view. That makes it important to use it in a way that allows the reader to relate to your character. I talked about author's voice last week. Your character has a voice too. Most authors have a fairly easy time with that. They assign a particular voice to the character and use that when writing dialogue. Sajani has a soft mid range alto. Tess speaks with an occasional squeak of excitement and is usually full of energy. Benayle is a smooth deep bass with a hint of a British accent. Sestus sounds like Peter Cushing <3.

Where voice does fail some authors is in audio accuracy. They hear the voice and the way things are worded mimics that, but they gloss over some parts of speech--specifically contractions. The use of contractions can say something about a character. Queen Zarlay, for instance, uses contractions sparingly. Aspects don't use them at all. Everyone else uses them fairly consistently. The rule of thumb I use on contractions in dialogue is: if I can italicize the second part, then the word stays; if I can't, then the words are contracted. The word may or may not end up being fully emphasized. It's only important to know the rule, not to make sure of emphasis every time. If the second word is included you are already giving it subtle emphasis. "I can't" vs "I can not" vs. "I can not."

I'll go more into it on a later post, but also remember that dialogue doesn't drive a story nearly as well as action. You need both to be effective as an author.

As always, thanks again to my few watchers. I love you. Share my books if you can!

The publisher has given clearance for me to start posting What Once was Eden in series with just a couple caveats. The "real" one is that you might be missing a few transition scenes. As it stands, Farnsbeck and Magenta go from East Oasis straight to the final well of the journey without much being told. Since those parts are being written now, some might end up missing because the posts pass over what's been written. They are mostly transition scenes and not necessary for following that subplot of the story.

The other stipulation is probably not going to happen, but he wanted me to mention the possibility. If it's decided that crucial stuff is going to be missed if I post, the next installment will be suspended until it's written. He is committed to seeing the whole thing posted here though. (Maybe not on SoFurry.com, since that's pretty dead.) As my Italian publisher likes to say, capisce? Good!

I'll also be posting some more of the "bonus material" I originally promised. It'll most likely end up in extra posts during the week or as journal entries.

A little note on the title of the book. Terahn religion is loosely based around modern Hinduism. Their concepts of heaven, hell, and Eden are very deep and complex. It was decided early in the production of the first book that, for those concepts, the words in Judeo/Christian tradition would be used instead. The one time hell is referenced in the first book, I originally used one of the Hindu concepts. The publisher sent it back and said that, basically, he really like the historical accuracy, but was afraid most people wouldn't know what I meant. He likened it to me using a square when a rectangle would be easier to visualize. Hell is a general word that encompasses the entirety of the Vedic locations of punishment for sin.

As for Eden... well, that's a little harder to pin down in the Vidas. Are we talking about the location of the two trees that encompass the concept of souls or are we talking about the abode of the Godhead? There are other possibilities as well. Fortunately Judeo/Christian terminology is at least acknowledged in India and the term "eden" is often used to refer to a type of paradise unspoiled by the modern life. In this way, the term eden fits perfectly with the area Sajani and Gregor are crossing. You learned in Fugitive's Trust that the area around East Oasis was once a lush jungle. You'll learn a little more about that in What Once was Eden.

As always, thank you so much to my few followers. I love and appreciate you. If you enjoy what you're reading, tell you friends and show them my books. :)

In Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, as Scrooge is approaching his door, the author reminds us that Scrooge's partner Marley was "as dead as a doornail." Dickens then goes on a little rant about how a coffin nail would be more appropriate to the saying, but for some reason people settled on a doornail being more dead. It isn't a short rant either. I bring this up because it's a great example of author voice and this is but one of countless examples in his works.

I hope that no one wants to debate the literary value of Dickens' works. Whether you like them or not, he has attained a level of fame that few authors see. So why do publishers try to throw voice out? I see scores of workshops and blogs telling authors to get rid of voice and yet, when I look at famous authors like Twain and Dickens and Pratchett, I see voice throughout their works. None of the authors I see touting that philosophy come even close to that level of fame.

Fortunately, I'm old enough to know the answer to that question. It has to do with how my teachers eons ago taught me about writing. (If I told you that one of my teachers was a triceratops, you'd get a little bit of an idea how long ago this was.) I was actually taught two different types of writing: business and creative. Two major rules in business writing were 1. Do not add outside commentary (voice) and 2. Be as direct as possible, using as few words as needed. When I was taught these rules, it was also explained that they didn't apply to creative writing.

While I have no idea when those rules contaminated the thoughts of modern publishers, the infection is now widespread.

Don't get me wrong. The face of writing does change and what an audience wanted in 1837 isn't exactly what an audience wants in 2037. The pattern of sales though, says that these two areas haven't changed. Terry Pratchett, Piers Anthony, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Barbara Hambly all made use of voice while this trend was moving forward.

Some small publishers though are fighting against the tide, the publisher of my books is among them.

Of course that said, if you're trying to get published you need to go by their stupid rules or apply to those that fit your style. But a big part of writing is giving your dreams and desires a voice. Don't give it up easily.

There's a concept in writing that tends to separate out the good writers from the... less than good writers. It comes down to depth. Most people have heard of character depth. The concept that there's a lot more to the character than what the reader sees. The whole reason we had those awful Star Wars prequel movies is because George Lucas did something really cool: he worked out the backstory for a character to gain an understanding of what drove one of his major villains. It takes the one dimensional character from the pages and puts her into three dimensions. Just about anyone that's read more than ten book reviews has probably heard of character depth.

Fewer have heard of illusionary depth. This is a concept similar to character depth, but applies more to the world at large. There are many great examples of this in literature--the penultimate (at least in my opinion) is found in Tolkien. According to one of his letters, when he was writing a scene in Moria, some unexpected words ended up on the page. Aragorn tells the hobbits that Gandalf can find his way from just about anywhere and he compares the Maiar to "the cats of Queen Beruthiel." Tolkien says that this is one of only two places where he didn't know the background story when he mentioned it. The reader is given a reference as if it's something that's considered common knowledge in the author's world, but isn't told enough to make anything from the reference. So all the reader knows from that reference is that there was a Queen who had some cats and her cats were known for always being able to find their way home. By not telling the reader any more than that, Tolkien has created "illusionary depth." It's a great technique in writing that can be overused, but usually is used less often than it could be.

There are a few examples in my own writing. One of the big ones in the first two books is the battle of Altaza. It's a defining moment in Sajani's life, but all you know is that her mother lost her life there making a very heroic stand. Fugitive's Trust gives you more information, but there's still a lot of the story that hasn't been told. Historical references are one of the more common methods of creating illusionary depth. I've even seen it used effectively in non-fiction or mainstream fiction.

Another method is used when dealing with the vykati (wolf-folk). The wolves are very different culturally and it's shown through their idioms. A few examples: "solid colored pelt," "pelt of a different color," "fetching from the deep current," and "right past my ears." In context it's pretty easy to figure out (it has to be or the author fails). There're also common phrases: "fewer than could be counted on one paw without using your thumb" and "wolves don't blush and neither do vykati." I wish I'd never created that last one, but that's another story. Remind me if I forget in the future. :P

In addition to idioms and catch phrases, the vykati have a very complex method of self-government. (Not created by me). I could write a couple novels full of information on these things, if I bothered to actually know everything behind them. Instead, I conserve words and give the reader just enough to show that the world has more to it than I can fit on the pages.

It's amazing how engaging a small reference like that can be. You find out that Belitha's father was the one that found the ancient spell of spirit binding. As you read the next 1000 pages, you're secretly wondering if you'll ever be told what that spell does and if it might be important later in the story. In Faux Scent you learn that a section of the Vhykar forest was cleared when a powerful druid tried to turn the plants against the wolf-folk of Vharkylia. The spell failed and the druid was killed. Does it have anything to do with the story? Maybe... Is it a McGuffin or is it just illusionary depth?

There used to be a video where my publisher talks about it for like an hour. This is the condensed (and much less boring) version. I'll take a leaf from the publisher's social media manager and end with some questions. What are some cool examples you've seen of this? What do you write into your stories to add depth? There are other methods of adding depth that I didn't touch. Can you name a few?

I started a So Furry account here. I'm told it's better for writers, but so far I'm having trouble figuring things out. I get an error page when up tell it to publish stuff and can't tell if it's publishing or saving or... And my story isn't showing up on the "latest" tab, but I am trying.