I'm not even sure if people read journal entries. (I do. But only the ones that don't have "stream" or "commission" in the title). Since I enjoy writing them, it doesn't really matter to me if people read it. Oh, I also skip journals from people that use a white font. I have the light color scheme on FA and it's not worth changing just because an ARTIST doesn't understand the concept of universal readability.

The official quarantine is over. I get out every now and again, but only when needed or when I'm going somewhere where no one else will be. A few friends ended up with COVID-19. They say that at our age (50s) it isn't too bad, just LLLOOONNNGGG. I'm glad I was already a bit of a recluse (PTSD will do that to you). I play video games, write, clean, shop, spend time with the kids, watch Dark Wing Duck episodes, rinse and repeat. I'm working on getting signed up with a local D&D group that works through roll20.net. We'll see how long that lasts. I get really nervous in public. Shopping is even kind of new to me. A year ago, I couldn't even do that.

I'm glad I was encouraged to start this account. It's been a big help on getting me a little more out of my shell. There will probably never be anything like a convention or book signing where you see me, but it's nice to at least feel like I'm being a little social.

Stay tuned for the original of the frame story from A Ship Called Hope. I'll post that this Saturday. After that will be posts from at least a couple of deleted scenes of Fugitive's Trust. I'll finish that set off with a few interesting notes about different parts of the story. For example, the story is never shown from Gregor's point of view. That's very deliberate. Sajani has her past and fear of getting close to someone that keeps her mostly from temptation. Gregor doesn't have that. Temptation is ALWAYS there for him, but it's important that he be shown as noble and considerate. (You'll find out why at the end of Benayle's Gambit.

After that I'll start with What Once was Eden.

And because I'm pretty sure that no one reads these, I'll just say here that Gregor dies at the end. :P Now you'll have to figure out if I'm serious or not.

To answer the unasked question: I haven't decided whether I'll ever clean up the frame story. When I post the story that it comes from (it's called "A Type of Devil") you'll see that it's fairly polished and my version isn't. I'm more likely to polish the frame story if asked, but even then, I'm not sure I'll take the time for it.

Currently on my plate:
1. A personal project. I wish I could post it here, but anything I post under this name is...limited. Long story short: my contract with RP Games protects my identity. If I do commissions for characters from the books, even things like badges, RP Games has to pay for them (via the company card) and then either it's deducted from my pay or I pay it back. (So my icons by  foxenawolf and  GoldenDruid were paid by them.)That way Chaaya Chandra stays anonymous. That might seem draconian to some, but it was at my request. Originally I was a ghost writer for the books and they were to be written under the publisher's name. You can even find sample covers like that on the internet still. That made him feel bad though and so he talked me into the pen name thing. To be honest, I liked the ghost writer option better.

2. Editing Fugitive's Trust. It releases in July (July 4th if all goes well) and there's still some rather rough parts of it. There's also a couple of parts still missing and/or needing to be removed. This is a back and forth thing that's kind of time consuming. It involves constant communication with the publisher/editors. It's done in real time. We all share the same copy. And no. It's not done on Google.

3. Getting What Once was Eden ready for serialization. Unofficially, that's my top priority. I don't want to run out of things to post on Saturdays and I love writing for Cyan and Magenta.

Stay well people. Since this is one of the few social things I can engage in, I'm open to requests. Before Iraq, I was quite the ham. ;) And this lets me be a little like my old self.

Saturday's update was kinda bland, I'll admit. It's just the setup for the frame story which will come in three installments. The last one actually has Chass fight. You may or may not have noticed that he doesn't do that very often. When you're 8'4", you don't have to fight very often. You just have show that you're willing to fight. :) If you're an 8'4" vykati pirate, It's even optional to show you're willing to fight. You'll notice in what I call the game timeline, Sajani doesn't fight at all. She'll square off against Sestus in a later book though.

Anyway. You'll see the next two updates from the frame story and then I have a couple of deleted scenes I'll post. As I was going through helping on the editing of Fugitive's Trust I noticed that something kind of weird was accidentally left in (it might still be there in the final version, we'll see.) Farnsbeck goes looking for his spoon and pulls out what looks like a weird set of collapsed rings. That's a magic item from the Terah game setting. It's called a Grave Robber's Friend and it allows a person to see through walls and stuff. It got it's name for helping grave robbers see what coffins contained valuables. It was added for a scene that was later deleted. And you'll get to see that scene. Fans of Magenta and Farnsbeck will like it. It's a good scene, but it forced the story in a direction I didn't want to go. Kind of like half of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Don't forget to share links to the story. Kind notes sent was what got the publisher to reinstate my contract for the books. Did I ever even mention that? Oh well, if I didn't. The contract on A Ship Called Hope had a clause in it that allowed the publisher to suspend it based on the sales of Book 2. And to say that Book 2 didn't sell that well, is... putting it mildly. It sold half as many copies as book 1 even though, in my opinion, it's a lot more solvent than the first book. The publisher used that clause. He was very nice about it, and I'm not at all dissing him (especially since he does visit my page here periodically). Compliments about Fugitive's Trust is what got him to reinstate it, but at the same time, the contract is only for what was A Ship Called Hope. So I still manage to get three books out of it (in part out of laziness. He didn't want to write up a whole new set of contracts, so simply made an addendum.) But he's been pretty clear that any future contracts are based solely on how well these three books do. Again, I can't blame him. I've done the only novels for the Terah world and since it's technically a game world, those are extra fluff and not considered vital.

Wow, that makes it all sound doom and gloom, but it's not really. The experience, with a good reference, opens up other writing opportunities, I just really like writing about Chass and Benayle. :)

So share links and stuff. Thanks. :)

Hi again! As my boss likes to say, "Itsa me. Mario." Well, name's a lot closer to Trish really.

Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you to my few stalwart watchers. I'll try to have some fun stuff for this Saturday's update. It will be one of two things: either a scene from What Once was Eden that includes a cameo appearance from  GoldenDruid or the first part of the orignal frame story of A Ship Called Hope Once the frame story is up, I also got permission to post the original short story my publisher wrote that it's based on. The main character is a human monk named Sajah and she solves a mystery very similar to the one in the frame story. (For those that don't know what a frame story is: it's a separate story told at the beginning and end of the main story that is tangentially related and has a plot of its own that enhances the main story. And yes, Sajah is the predecessor of Sajani. As a matter of fact A Ship Called Hope was originally outlined for Sajah as part of a novel for Paizo's Gollarion world setting.

The original intent was to tie it into the main Sajani Tails time frame. So why was it removed? Originally it was removed because the main story was looking like it would be over 600 pages long and having a few pages at the beginning and end for another story detracted from main story rather than enhanced it. The death blow to the concept came when it was decided that the book(s) would not actually be officially part of the Sajani Tails series at all, but be a separate prequel trilogy. If you've read the first two books, you can blame Chass for that. Chass is one of our more popular characters and the publisher felt that there was a definite emotional attachment between the character and the Sajani Tails stories. He didn't want people buying the stories thinking he'd be there and then have people find out he wasn't.

Anyway, tootles friends! Have a great week!

It's ironic that soldiers who develop PTSD, did so from facing fear but are now afraid to have any kind of public contact. They are experts in that field, but can't bring themselves to overcome it just one more time. I served in the US Army and as a result, I have PTSD, some of it from combat, some of it from...other things. Mine is particularly limiting. I panic really easily and often. While I'm not to the point where I can do large gatherings or even go shopping by myself, I have learned a lot about facing fear.

1. It's ok to be afraid. I know when I was under fire while I was in the Army, I wasn't the only one afraid. I'd be surprised if anyone wasn't. Sajani's father had it right when he said, "Courage isn't something that can be rated or scored. What might be terrifying to one might be normal to another. The courage needed to face the former is much greater than the courage needed to face the latter, though the event be the same." Don't try to tell yourself that you shouldn't be afraid, instead face the fear for what it is: a part of you.

2. Everyone needs to believe in something. Believe in others. Believe in yourself. Fear has a vaccine and it might surprise you to know what it is (it might not, but it might). The vaccine for fear is confidence. There are certain types of fear that simply cannot exist when confidence is present. Just like the flu vaccine, however, there are types of fear that still get through. Having confidence lessens the impact dramatically.

It's a difficult time and fear is a natural emotion for some to be feeling right now. My publisher and his family are awaiting testing for COVID-19. He's been sick for 10 days straight now, but I got an email from him yesterday with editing changes for Fugitives' Trust. Apparently he's still going just fine. As Mark Twain put it, "Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear." Keeping your nose to the news 24/7 sets you in place. Move forward. Or like they said in the Army, "Charlie Mike. Continue the Mission."

Stay well friends. Be strong. Be brave.

It's not much, but my publisher released some kids books in digital format to entertain the kids while they're out of school. One has actual drawings in it and the other two just have blank pages for the kids to draw what they like. All three are about popular vykati characters in my books: Chass, Sajani, and Benayle. I wrote them for my kids. They're formatted to be made into booklets and have instructions on how to print them and put them together. Rossi Publishing Games is also offering to print them up for people in the US that might not have access to a printer or get frustrated trying to put them together with a standard stapler. You can contact them through Facebook.com/TerahProject.

The files are available through OneDrive here.

Stay safe and well friends.

Not sure why i bother with journals, but here's another one. :)

Everyone in my house is well, but my publisher is waiting to be screened for COVID-19. He also turned down my request to post a full version of the novel, now with the working title "Fugitive's Trust: A Ship Called Hope Part I." I'll probably get in trouble for posting that update, but oh well, he's too sick to notice. The other books (A Ship Called Hope Parts II&III) will be called "What Once was Eden" and "Benayle's Gambit". I do have permission to post those in series, but there will be a delay on them as I get them ready.

Yesterday's update will be a little late. I'm hoping to get it posted early tomorrow morning.

Well, not really, but I couldn't come up with a title for this journal entry that wouldn't be taken as a criticism of FA.

And I don't want to criticize FA. I want to criticize the crazy people that do DDoS attacks on an art site! Really? I don't agree with all the stuff that's posted here, but I don't know anyone, not even my spouse, who I agree with all the time, so I live with it. Heck, I rarely agree with my publisher, but I keep writing.

Anyway, short journal entry to tell people that this is the only authorized place for me to post Sajani Tails. So while other people are posting saying: drop FA and follow me on xsocialmediax, I'm saying that you can read my stuff for free here or buy it elsewhere and read it. To make that easier, I'll probably do a single post of the first part of book 3 once it's done. You'll get to meet Magenta soon! I'm so excited.

I wanted to let everyone know that yes, I missed the update last Saturday on purpose. I wanted to take a break for the holidays. I did forget to post a journal telling people though. :P There aren't many updates left, even though it might look like the story has a long way to go. The reason for that is the book is divided into three parts and I only have permission to post the first part, which ends when the pair arrive at East Oasis. You get to meet Magenta. I think permission will be worked out for the second part just fine, but I need to correct some major errors in the text first. As it stands Magenta and Cyan just magically appear in the port city.

In other news, there's a fundraiser over on  GoldenDruid 's page. If you donate for Paws in the Park, you're entered into a raffle for (among other cool stuff) my first two books! That was a neat surprise, since I wasn't actually told that she had those! It's a good cause for some good books!

I'd like to do a giveaway, but I think I'm missing an important thing to make that possible: followers. :P

My ego isn't tied to people responding to journals because I know that most people here just use it for advertising and it gets mass deleted, so I won't feel bad if no one responds. I won't make a long rant post about no one responding because of that and because I'm more mature than your average teenager.

But if people do happen to respond, I'll give away one free 1k word commission of a (PG) scene of your character or a scene of the Sajani Tails characters. Read my commissions page for guidelines.

This week's novel update might be a little late, but I do plan on posting.

I'll also probably start making some commentary on the updates. I haven't in the past, but there's a lot of kind of fun things behind a lot of these posts and I'd like to share them the week after each post.

Things like: I didn't know Farnsbeck was in the story until he knocked on Benayle's office door and his sudden appearance is what led to the whole "avert a war" storyline.

And

From the very beginning, things about the Aspects were supposed to be presented in a way that allowed the person experiencing them to doubt what they've seen. That rule is really stretched in A Ship Called Hope, but each time it does come up, even if the person experiencing it has little to no room to doubt (like the second part of Westa's vision in book one), others can dismiss it completely as fable or dementia.

If the series of Benayle ever happens (if you write, ask me how to submit work to be considered for the job), you'll learn a lot about how Benayle knows what to do in some really hard situations.

Have fun people!

I hope everyone enjoyed the spoiler for book four (It might be seven, but that's another story). It isn't really as spoiler heavy it looks. If you avoided the story to avoid spoilers though, you might want to skip down the READ HERE below.

The destruction of the Wisp is mentioned on the wiki where you can also find out what eventually happened to it. Obviously, since Chass ends up as a professor about a hundred years after book one (vykati can live to 200 or more) he doesn't die. Also, although it's mentioned in book one that 'fang dies before Chass does, this isn't where that happens. Anyway, some not asked for spoilers. :P

READ HERE

What I really wanted to post about is the work on book three. As it stands, the publisher would have to charge $30 for the book to make up the cost difference between 100k words and close to 300k words. OR he could charge for three books at $9.99 each (like the first two books). This is part of why he pulled the "retraction" clause on my contract for the book. (Yes, technically, I'm no longer on contract for this book, but things were handled very professionally and kindly, so no hate mail to RPGames, please. The contract is in a kind of suspension, not cancelled yet).

Anyway, look at me rambling on as much as my publisher does. Yada yada yada. Look at me I'm the owner of Rossi Publishing Games and I.... probably shouldn't be making fun on him on a public forum.

I am curious if anyone out there has an opinion on how they'd like to see the next book(s). The cost to the reader is the same either way. I make the same either way. The publisher makes less because the overhead goes higher, but he seems ok with that. Would you rather buy one big book or a trilogy?

Today I'm tattling on myself.

I missed the update this last Saturday again. I'm very sorry. I'll make sure the next one is longer to make up for it.

It's a good reason to miss though. I've been a lot more involved in the launch of Book 2 than I thought I'd be. The digital version is up on BN.com AND the print copy will be available Thursday.

I'm told that Apple Books and Kindle versions should be available next week.

Life is good.

The kids went back to school last week, so I've been a little busy. All good stuff though. Nothing bad. I'll be back to posting again soon. I just kept getting a little... Squirrel!

Some authors are afraid to use their good ideas all at once. I compare it to a common thing in table top role-playing games. I've been in a group with a DM that's very generous on giving out single use items. Most people there had three decent listed on their character sheets when someone asked him why he kept giving them out if there weren't good chances to use them.

He laughed.

Then he pointed out several times when we could have used the items--times that were specifically put in the story for those things to be used.

Then he explained. He gives out items items like that because the players feel like he's being very generous, but at the same time, he knows that we'll be afraid to use them, always second guessing that some time where we'd need it more would come up later.

Ideas are like that. Writers will come up with a really emotional scene or great comeback or even just a good line of dialogue and then they never use those ideas because they figure that a better place will come up for them later, or they figure that if they use up all the good ideas at once, they'll run of good ideas.

Here's my tip then: use them when you can. The "better" time never comes. And if you're worried about not having enough good ideas... well... um... If you run out of ideas that fast... maybe you should... um... maybe you shouldn't... heck... maybe you should just put them all into one great book and live off that. There I said it politely. :)

If you haven't read book one, skip this.

Doc was an interesting character to write. He wasn't part of the publisher's outline for the story and was brought in because Sajani wasn't high enough level to heal Simon's broken arm and a larger army unit, like a platoon would have some kind of healer assigned. He is a cleric archetype called a chaplain, who takes a slight penalty on healing power to be able to heal more people. It's mentioned once that Cutter isn't his real name, but I don't know any more than that. He got the nickname because he has some minor surgical knowledge and while not a real surgeon, doesn't mind trying if it stands a chance of saving a life.

He wasn't originally supposed to die, but once Westa had her vision (which also was not in the original outline), he had to leave so she could take his place.

Doc is my most referenced minor character when people talk about the book, but the scenes that (in my opinion) made him really likable were all cut in editing, so it wasn't hard to for me to kill him off (unlike some other characters that have taken more than a year to kill off). He really is dead. His body wasn't found as a random happenstance in the writing, not to have him come back later.

The publisher likes to tell people that he doesn't know if Doc is really gone or not, but as far as I know (and he is 100% my character), he is.

Today's tip is about something really annoying to me. It's fair, but annoying.

When your publisher tells you that you need to do something (or in this case not do something) you do need to it. Most places give you a lot of creative leeway, but unless you're talking about moral issues (which I could write a whole other post about), you're being paid to do what's asked of you, just like any other job.

So if, hypothetically, your publisher sent you the final version of the cover for your book AND gave a set release date for the same book, and then tells you to keep it secret, you can't say anything about it. Can't post a pic of that beautiful cover by  GoldenDruid You can't say anything abut how excited you are that your novel will be released on <redacted>. You just have to sit and wait for the publisher to get all his <redacted> ducks i a row.

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.
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I hate waiting.

A little early, but I doubt anyone will care. :)

A weird question I've seen a few times (not that many, so there's not many weird people out there) is if an author has ever had a crush on one of her characters. Yeah, pretty weird question.

For me, the answer is no. While I try to give each of my characters (even the villains) a healthy dose of good qualities (some more than others), I don't make duplicates of specific people. Even when I was younger, I didn't create characters that I'd want to be romantically involved with. I read and write to escape reality, but once I'm done, I need to live in that reality and pursuing imaginary people makes reality more dull and less fulfilling, at least to me. That doesn't mean that I don't pull personality traits from people I love or that you can't say such and such a character isn't roughly based on so and so, but it's never an exact match.

I've only written two characters that I'd never want to meet. I don't want to meet Rana and I don't want to meet the person that attacks <redacted> in book two. Both are darn creepy.

I'd love to meet Chass, he's a personal favorite, and I wouldn't mind sitting down to lunch with Sestus. I'd work for Sajani, but not her mother. I'd love to have been able to console her father when he needed it, but I'd never want to try and raise his daughter.

It's important that an author feel some sort of connection to her characters and I'm not saying that having a crush on one is wrong (weird to me, but not wrong), but I read to make friends, not to find lovers.

What’s a prerelease copy?

Normally RP Games doesn’t sell prerelease versions of its books. They get some samples from the printer and then make their final changes before the book is officially released for public consumption.

This is probably the only time they’ll be doing things different.

Instead of just keeping it in house with a few promotional copies given out, they’re allowing the public to purchase books before everything is finalized.

Why purchase a prerelease copy?

Well, it’d not going to have a higher value in the future. I’m not that popular, but you get to read the story as soon as possible. It can also give some insight into what changes a publishing company needs to make after the test run. Hint: not a lot. There will be some typos that were missed and a few formatting errors, but it’s very unlikely that it’ll have material added.

Why wait for the final release?

Most, if not all, of the errors will be fixed AND you get a book with the finished cover by  GoldenDruid!

For those that might be as excited as I am you can buy it here.

I’ve been really busy today doing final changes to book two. The pre-release copy will be available at BN.com by Monday.

I hear a lot of people talk about being on x draft of their story. I don’t write by drafts. I do what I’m told you shouldn’t do and edit as I go. For me it works out pretty well because it gives me more time to visualize the upcoming scenes. When it gets down to deadlines like it is now, I get emails with search phrases in them. I go into the document and do a find and then make the changes the editor is suggesting.

Most changes by this point are done on the publisher’s side, but there’s usually a few things that the editors don’t want to leave to chance, especially in dialogue.

So there’ll be some formatting and editing changes between this version of the pre-release and the final release at the beginning of September, but there won’t be any story changes. So if you’re anxious to see the next book, you won’t be missing anything except  GoldenDruid ’s awesome finished cover. :)

I plan on getting both the prerelease and the final one because its MY book. :)

Missed Thursday’s journal completely and the installment of Book Three was a little late, but things are moving forward. There should be a pre-release version of book two available soon™ and the final version should come shortly after that. The digital version of Book one will also be returning to Amazon, but there’re no plans to bring the printed version there.

Today’s spoiler/insight is about Sajani’s ship, Wisp. The ship wasn’t part of the basic summary I got for the first book, I was just told that eventually Sajani would end up with her own flying ship. It was supposed to be a more steampunk style ship, but I opted for something that was more elf specific instead. The publisher wasn’t very thrilled with the change but Sajani’s pun when the ship is being named sold him on it.

The wiki mentions that the ship had to be returned to the Western Continent twice for repairs. The first time happens in book four (which is still in general planning, although the scene where the ship goes down is written in rough). Book four is also where my fursona, Chaaya Chandra actually shows up.

Thanks again to my followers. There aren’t many of you, but I deeply appreciate having you with me. :)

Today’s insight into the books is: the story behind book three was actually written long before the character of Sajani was created. Sajani comes from a character in a short story written by Carl Rossi (my publisher). The character was a human monk named Sajah who hailed from the Pathfinder world’s version of India. In creating the character, the backstory for book three was developed.

Like a lot of the stories created for Terah, once it got to me, it was changed and deepened and is nearly unrecognizable from the original concept, but we owe Sajani to a human monk that liked to solves mysteries.

You can read the original story (it won a runner up award) here.

This will probably get lost in the flood of new journals from the site being down.

Imagine if you will a job that only takes maybe a half hour a day to start, only requires basic letter writing skills, some online marketing knowledge, and has the potential to make thousands a week/month.

Oh, and it’s real. Your first thought (I would hope) is that it’s a scam. And I suppose it is, only you’re the one doing the scamming.

They share a title with a real (and increasingly necessary profession): literary agents.

Here’s how to spot the fraud (it’s really easy are you ready for it?):

They charge you money.

That’s it. They can show you their record of numerous authors that they got published and their list may even be true. But they’re scamming others.

So they take you money. According to my publisher, it can be told after the FIRST PARAGRAPH if something is publishable in 90% of submissions. Very close to 10% more of that can be told within ten pages. Less that 1% require a full reading.

So you’re not paying them to read your story: you’re paying them to help you feel good about yourself. Then they send you the rejection letters with all kinds of fabricated stories of why it failed. They tell you that you’re so close and do you happen to have a newer version of the story and another $500? They don’t even need to send in anything of yours. With technology, they can fabricate any rejection letter they want and have it say whatever they want.

Real agents don’t waste your time or their time. They make their money as a cut of published works, so they only want to spend time on things that will be accepted. They do not ask for money up front (some can be subsidized by large publishing houses).

Oh, and never let an agent earn retroactive pay for something you got published. I can’t believe I’ve heard of that.

Benayle and Sajani are not my characters. Both were created as part of the history of the game world. Sajani was created by the publisher, Carl Rossi, and Benayle was created by his daughter. While I didn’t come up with the original characters and I do “get approval” on just about everything they do, both the publisher and his daughter agree, they’re more my characters now than they are theirs. :)

There’s a trend in writing, usually attributed to Game of Thrones (which I’ve never seen) to kill off random characters in the story.

I’m not one to say that a particular writing mechanic is right or wrong. There’s a few that I’m really hesitant to use or refuse to use altogether, but that doesn’t make them incorrect. What it does do is cheapen death. The first character that dies will produce a certain amount of shock and then next a little less, and the next a little less.

Any writing mechanic loses its effect if overused. i’ve come to call it the Guildenstern effect after a monogragh in the famous book by Tom Stoppard, Rosencranatz and Guildenstern are Dead.

“A man breaking his journey between one place and another…, sees a unicorn cross his path and disappear. That in itself is startling, but there are precedents for mystical encounters of various kinds, or to be less extreme, a choice of persuasions to put it down to fancy; until – ‘My…,’ says a second man, ‘ I must be dreaming, I thought I saw a unicorn.’ At which point a dimension is added that makes the experience as alarming as it will ever be. A third witness, you understand, adds no further dimension but only spreads it thinner, and a fourth thinner still, and the more witnesses there are the thinner it gets and the more reasonable it gets until it is as thin as reality, the name we give to the common experience . . . . ‘Look, look!’ recites the crowd. ‘A horse with an arrow in its forehead! It must have been mistaken for a deer.’

Tess's ability to imitate voices was surprising. I didn't expect that, but it was a welcome addition. It even helped later the book.

I met my publisher playing World of Warcraft and he once told a story in chat there about a chaplain that he worked with. Apparently this chaplain could do voice imitations and he once walked into one of the command tents and yelled, "What's going on in here?" in the sergeant major's voice. The duty officer dropped the magazine he was reading and jumped up. The rest of the tent also almost went into shock before figuring out who had really said that.

So when Tess relates what she did using her voice imitations, it's based on a true story.

I recently was shown a Tweet by a prospective author pleading with people to help her find a similar story to her own so she could mention it in her query.

I'll try to say this as gently as possible, because I consider myself a kind person.

The reason a similar title is mentioned in your query is two fold:
A. You're narrowing down the genre to something more specific. That helps the agent/publisher know a little better about what direction to send your story if there are multiple divisions.
B. You're demonstrating that you know your audience. The publisher/agent is going to be able to figure out A. pretty quickly on reading, but if the writer has no idea what other people in her audience are reading...well that comes across less than well. You need to know your audience.

If you're having trouble figuring out what is a similar story type, there are a bunch of possible causes, but the most likely are:

1. You've invented a new genre or at least are feeling like you have (see item 2). What are the people that are interested in your story reading? The Wolf's Pawn is not a new genre by any stretch of the imagination, but people that read that type of story also read books from shared RPG worlds, so I suggest Prince of Wolves by David Gross. The two books have a few things in common, but the biggest commonality is the shared RPG world.

2. You're writing and not reading. I can't believe how often I see this one. I even saw someone saying that she can't write her own story if she's reading someone else's. I'm not going to go off the tangent that so easily presents itself here (maybe on another Thursday). Writing requires A LOT of reading. If you can't figure what's similar, you probably need to read more.

3. Similar to what I said in 1, you might be thinking you have something really original. I hate to say it, but... you don't. You might have some interesting twists on previous ideas, but in the end, even new genre breakers like The Difference Engine, make use of the same stuff writers have been using for thousands of years. People are still people. They've always been people. They'll always be people, if you pull away from that, your reader has nothing in your story to relate to. Broaden your thinking. Look at the common elements in your story and try to compare again.

While asking around will give you suggestions and probably give you a title you can mention, it's putting a bandaid on a cut that needs stitches: it hides the problem for a little while, but in the end, it's going to show.