Every Project Starts the Same Way - Or Does It?

Every one of my books/series (now up to 15/5) truly begins with a character.  In the Books of the Rai-kirah, it was the arrogant, the-world-is-mine-to-enjoy desert warrior Aleksander (not Seyonne!).  The Bridge of D'Arnath rose from the bitter, exiled duchess Seri.  The novels of the Collegia Magica were to be a home story for the brooding necromancer Dante (nope, not Portier). Lucian, the non-renegade, the upright believer in pureblood discipline, was the whole reason for the Sanctuary Duet. Only for the Lighthouse Duet did I have ideas about the world and the world's problems before I had an idea of that character. But I didn't write a word until the image of a lanky renegade drug addict came to me. He was face down on the floor of an abbey church taking holy orders, and I could hear an unforgettable voice, saying, "What the hell am I doing here?" Anyone who's read those two books knows very well that Valen shaped and drove the story of Flesh and Spirit and Breath and Bone in the same way that Aidan, the visionary musician, shaped the story of Song of the Beast.

Even my pieces of short fiction that now number more than nil took off with the idea of a character. Gareth, the talentless farmer, was the inspiration for Unmasking, Girl told of her experience At Fenwick Faire. Valen, my favorite blackguard, was the seed for Seeds. The encounter of a novice constable with a familiar unnamed necromancer was the starting point for Uncanonical Murder (now out in the spring issue of Pulp Literature ).  And Saverian from Breath and Bone demanded to star in an almost-novelette for a new anthology to be announced later in 2016.

All the other characters, the world, the settings, the plot grew from ideas about that one person, even if, on occasion, a character I believed secondary became the more important than the instigator.  So there.

But when I started noodling around with a new (big) project last month...



I settled on an ensemble cast, each person with an unusual skill. I had a whisper of an idea about each of four people and then I ran into a wall that seemed near insurmountable. This will be a different process. Maybe.  I'll tell you how it's going next time.  Read more of this post!

The Heart's Coda

Last spring I received an invitation to submit a story to an anthology of high fantasy. With such a tight schedule for the Collegia Magica books, I wasn't sure I'd have the time. (Still not sure I had the time!) The editor offered to send me copies of her previous two anthologies so I could see if I wanted to join in the third of the series.

The anthologies are called Lace and Blade, from Norilana Books, a small press that puts out absolutely gorgeous editions of classics, as well as some original works and these anthologies. Check out the luscious cover art for the first and second volumes.

Well, I read several of the stories in the two volumes, including the lovely novella, "The Night Wind" by Mary Rosenblum that had just been selected for this year's Nebula ballot. Not only was I impressed (and intimidated) by the quality of the stories, but I really wanted to have a story in the new one. So I told her yes. The due date would be August 1.

So, of course, the next thing was to figure out what to write. Length could be variable, wrote the editor. Write tight, but make it as long as it needs to be.

The only way I can produce short fiction while writing another book is to piggyback on one of my existing worlds. Which was quite all right, said the editor. And when I spun the bottle and got to thinking, the right project stared up at me.



Song of the Beast was not my first novel published, but I actually wrote it before Transformation. I always intended it to be a standalone, and I was happy where it ended. The primary story arc was complete and satisfying (certainly to ME!) But, in truth, I did leave Aidan MacAllister's world in upheaval. He had changed the world so dramatically that nothing would ever be the same. His personal story - a visionary musician imprisoned as his fame reached its height, released after 17 brutal years, unable to sing or play his harp or hear the voice of the god of music who had guided his musical development - led him into a wilderness where he hoped to repair half a millennium of injustice. And I never told readers whether or not he got the girl who helped him do what he had to do.

Needless to say, I heard from a lot of readers that they wanted to know what happened after. That was what I wanted to write.

But once I got to thinking about it, something unexpected happened. As I told the editor:

Like many authors, I don't believe that my heroes' and heroines' lives end on the last page of my books. Which means, of course, that when you check up on them long after the grand and terrible events are over, you occasionally discover that their futures haven't gone quite as you expected. Thus it happened when I looked up Aidan MacAllister, the visionary musician-hero of Song of the Beast. What I found compelled me to write "The Heart's Coda."

Forthcoming in Lace and Blade 3 from Norilana Books, February 14, 2010

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A Gritty Myth Goes Live

So I don't write short stories very often. When our local non-profit writers organization, the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, asked me to contribute a short story to their anthology, Broken Links, Mended Lives, I hesitated. I was in the middle of working on The Spirit Lens, and I only had one piece of a story in my trunk. I really wanted to support the organization, though, so right after I turned in The Spirit Lens, I pulled out the fragment and spent a little time with it. If I could finish the thing in a reasonable amount of time, I'd submit it. Otherwise I'd pass.

The story was mostly a voice. A girl's voice. She didn't even have a name. But she lived in a pretty nasty world, and her story would definitely fit the theme of the anthology. Every "link" she had was broken.

As it happened, I had a lot of fun with it - and to my surprise, I was able to tell a whole story within the guidelines of 5-6K words. Well, here's how this nameless girl introduced herself:

My parents never told me I had Talent. Perhaps they thought it undignified for the daughter of a city magistrate, or believed it might frighten me or make me insolent. Or maybe they just left it too late, and had the lack of consideration to die of plague before warning me.

Now don’t think me unfeeling, but when one is ten years old and the whole world is dying of plague, or slaughtering each other for fear of it, or taking flight to escape it, one has little time to mourn, or even to recall why one should. When civilization has erupted into chaos, the next meal looms much larger in importance than past grieving.

Six years I spent scrabbling in search of that next meal before I trudged up a rock-blasted hill and through the iron gate of Fenwick Priory. By that time I had seen far more of men and life than was really necessary, and taking up residence with a group of similarly exhausted women seemed sensible. The sisterhood grew vegetables, kept to themselves, and did no good works to speak of. I had no illusion that this would be a permanent situation. The sisters didn’t seem that agreeable, and entanglement of any sort made me want to cram a shiv in someone’s craw.

"You'll tend a plot, Girl," said the bony Prioress, licking the beaded honey from a suckle blossom grown right out of the crumbled courtyard wall. "Each of us has one."

"Don't know how," I said and scratched my itchy foot on a cracked step. "Not opposed, but I never learnt. My parents called planting hireling’s work. I’ll scrub for you. Fetch and carry. Steal, if you want. I'm good at those."

"You don't tend a plot, you don't eat. Go or stay, as you will."

I stayed. The road had got tiresome of late. My boots had fallen to pieces, and a thieving tallyman had jacked my knife. Bare hands or sticks weren’t enough to fend off the skags now I was ripe. Last thing I needed was a squaller planted inside me. My own belly was empty half the time.

The story is called At Fenwick Faire, and I would call it a gritty myth.

The anthology is Broken Links, Mended Lives. There are some excellent stories in the anthology - some by published authors, some by authors who certainly should be. It is mixed genre - in keeping with the organization's membership - but I would estimate that more than half the stories are in the "speculative fiction" realm.

If you'd like to support an organization that works hard to educate and support aspiring writers, as well as catch some great talent, give it a try.

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The Heart's Coda (maybe)

This has been quite a month. The aforementioned medical issue included my first ever surgery - as I said before all with most satisfactory resolution. But I kept wanting to take naps all month - and I hate naps. And then the Song of the Beast story, tentatively titled The Heart's Coda, just ate my brain! Aidan was always such a sweetheart, you know, but he's been out there with the dragons for three very long years...

Oh, did you think I was going to tell you something else?

Since you looked, here's a snippet:

The man towered over me. Senai born, no doubt of it, with such exceptional height, thick, black hair, and strong, lean features. He appeared not so much burnt as angry. Not so much dead as tired and dirty and underfed. Eyes closed, face twisted in effort, he blurted, "Who?"

I swallowed the knots collected in my throat and attempted to bow from my prostrate position which I was not confident enough to alter. No Elhim in the world, not even my progenitor who is exceptionally tall and broad in the back for my race, would reach this man's shoulder. And the shredded garments, and the tangled hair grown out in all directions, even sprouted from his face—which I had been told was not at all his customary aspect—gave MacAllister a savage appearance. Surely living in the wild so long alone with beasts must tax a man's reason.

The speaker, as you may note, is an Elhim named Glyn par Davyn - yes, Davyn's "progeny." And no, the story does not address Elhim procreation. That will be matter for another story.

But thank goodness, the story is now done and sent away. Hooray! I will update with publication news when I have some.
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Lazy, Hazy Days...

Whew, it's been a month since a post. What kind of blogger am I? [Head hangs in shame.]

After the May revisions push, I started work on a short story promised to a great anthology. Dithered about it. Got distracted by a health issue which has just come to a happy resolution. Got distracted by a mountain trip where I found out Breath and Bone won the 2009 Colorado Book Award for genre fiction. [Hooray!]

Meanwhile, The Soul Mirror beckons and the short story bothers, because its opening just keeps dragging and dragging. I think I've got a good setup, but need some concentrated work [yes, really, concentration has been absent for the past 6 weeks.]

I want to base this story on Song of the Beast. I've had so many people ask for a sequel, and I did leave Elyria in a terrible mess. The primary relationship - of two people who each woke the other person's heart and courage - was resolved. But their future relationship was only hinted at. As the two people are very different and have been abandoned in messy circumstances, a variety of interesting things could happen. I wanted to give just a hint of resolution and/or new direction to Aidan's story. So what's the problem?


Well writing short, for one. I am just not accustomed to it.

Basing a story on the resolution of a novel, for another. How do I avoid too much backstory? That's where I'm bogging down. World background. Relationship background. As well as new characters and new situation to resolve. I feel as if I need to write completely for my own benefit, but I have to trust that I'll be able to pare it down enough to make it a great story for those who haven't read the book, as well as those who have. Tough. Think about it.

Timing. I need to get this done. How do people dash off short stories over a weekend?
More tomorrow.
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Writing Short

So what have I been up to since turning in The Spirit Lens? Besides catching up on some business around the house, I've been working on several writing projects.

First, despite my best intentions to avoid looking at The Spirit Lens for at least a month, I spent about a week rewriting those last 30K words. I sent it in having scarcely read it over, so there was lots to do. It is now much cleaner and I've put it aside. Giving yourself time away from a manuscript is the first rule of Revision.

Second, I've been dabbling with the opening of The Soul Mirror. I've written some notes in the line of "Unanswered questions" and "What's been happening in the four years between the books?" Much more about that in another post.

But my most serious work has been on a short story for the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers' 2009 anthology called Broken Links, Mended Lives. This is a 5K word story, as opposed to the 25K word novella Unmasking (Elemental Magic, Berkley 2007). As you may have guessed, I just don't write short, mostly because I don't read short. I like to get invested in characters, and I just hate it when I've just gotten involved and it's over. But I agreed to do this story - the editors are my excellent friends - and I had to do it quick. And my enjoyment in writing Unmasking had a lot to do with my agreement to do this!

So 5000 words. Not much time for world building. Not much time for character development. I am convinced that people who write excellent short stories are akin to poets. Because the trick seems to be, Make every word count. No time for those wishy-washy verbs or weasel words like very, quite, half, really, almost. No time for a plethora of adjectives or extra dialog tags.

Even more difficult, you still have to produce a story arc. Some kind of beginning, middle, end that incorporates a fundamental change. My first draft turned out flat, a young woman in a post-apocalyptic world finds out something stunning that changes her life, only...I didn't show it. Her reaction was so subtle, her character so accustomed to holding everything in that she...held everything in. I knew it. I felt it. My critique group confirmed it. And...

I fixed it! It only took a few extra words. A few reactions on her part. A clearer presentation of her choice. A slightly more visible struggle. And just three or four words at the end that demonstrated her fundamental change. And it came out 5017 words.

Want to read a teaser?

At Fenwick Faire

My parents never told me I had Talent. Perhaps they thought it undignified for the daughter of a city magistrate, or felt it might frighten me or make me insolent. Or maybe they just left it too late, and had the lack of consideration to die of plague before warning me.

Now don't think me unfeeling, but when one is ten years old and the whole world seems to be dying of plague, or slaughtering each other for fear of it, or taking flight to escape it, one has little time to grieve, or even to recall why one should. When civilization has erupted into chaos, the next meal looms much larger in importance than past grieving.

Six years I spent scrabbling in search of that next meal before I trudged up a rock-blasted hill and through the iron gate of Fenwick Priory. By that time I had seen far more of men and life than was really necessary, and taking up residence with a group of similarly exhausted women seemed sensible. The sisterhood grew vegetables, kept to themselves, and did no good works to speak of. I had no illusion that this would be a permanent situation. The sisters didn't seem that agreeable, and entanglement of any sort made me want to cram a shiv in someone's craw.

"You'll tend a plot, Girl," said the bony Prioress, licking the beaded honey from a suckle blossom grown right out of the crumbled courtyard wall. "Each of us has one."

"Don't know how," I said and scratched my itchy foot on a cracked step. "Not opposed, but I never learnt. My parents called planting hireling's work. I'll scrub for you. Fetch and carry. Steal, if you want. I'm good at those."

"You don't tend a plot, you don't eat. Go or stay, as you will."

I stayed. The road had got tiresome of late. My boots had fallen to pieces, and a thieving tallyman had jacked my knife. Bare hands or sticks weren't enough to fend off the skags now I was ripe. Last thing I needed was a squaller planted inside me. My own belly was empty half the time.

Early on my second morning, Prioress marched me down the long valley back of the priory, past twenty or so vegetable patches. "Choose," she said, waving her hand around the empty scrubland.

I didn't know squat about gardens, but I walked about and settled on a spot. "Here."

With sticks and knotted string pulled from dead women’s dresses, the Prioress staked out a square of hard gray dirt. "There's wood in the shed and a chisel to make your tools. When you're ready to plant, we've seed stock in the vault."

One of the sisters, digging nearby, mopped her sweat and snickered. She sounded like the cicadas rasping in the dry brush. "Can't eat the weeds, stupid Girl. Got to pull them before you can plant. You just chose yourself more work."

So I had. Spiky thistles and snarls of threadweed littered my plot. Thistles would sting, and tough, fibery threadweed would cut my hands, but it made sense that if something grew there now, something other might.

To be sure, the cultivated plots roundabout looked little better. Stunted beans. Wilted greens. The sisters saved them from parched oblivion by hauling water from a nearby stream, doling it out drop by precious drop. The stream itself was scarce but a trickle of spit.

You see, our land had been thirty years without rain...
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