Author: terribleminds (page 214 of 465)

Jakkeb Sato’s revolution transforms the city of Recoletta. He dethrones the old oligarchs, opens up the secret archives, and establishes a new government based on change and transparency.

Months later, Recoletta is in shambles, the farming communes have revolted, and neighboring cities scheme against the crippled behemoth.

Inspector Liesl Malone, now chief of police, must protect her city from black market barons, violent insurgents, and the excesses of Sato’s new government. Meanwhile, Jane Lin has fled to the city of Madina, where she learns of a plot to crush Recoletta. Jane must decide whether—and how—to save her old city from her new home.

***

SEQUELS ARE HARD

Writing is a lot like hiking through a snowstorm. You set your eyes on a distant summit and press forward despite pain, toil, and the fussing of your own better judgment. You tell yourself that, once you reach that shining peak, you will find a nice, warm hut with hot chocolate and a place to pee.

When you arrive, you find that you’ve still got a long ways to go and nothing but a windswept crag for relief.

After I finished writing my first book, I thought the second would be easy.

Oops.

It turns out that writing a sequel isn’t easier than writing a first novel. The challenges are just different. The first draft came out cleaner, and I was better able to dodge structural pitfalls without sinking thousands of words.

But even improvements can be mixed blessings. In some ways, I think my growth as a writer slowed my progress. I was more deliberate with my plotting because I was quicker to recognize the ideas and impulses that didn’t work. I was more cautious at the keyboard because I was choosier about the words I was typing. I would break the first rule of drafting—which is to keep the words flowing—when I caught myself writing convoluted or insipid prose.

And we haven’t even gotten to deadlines yet.

KEEP IT FUNKY, KEEP IT FRESH

Yet in some ways, writing a sequel can be relaxing. After all, you’ve already established the world and introduced the characters, so the groundwork is laid. Now you get to play with pieces you already know well.

But this can also be a danger, for familiarity often breeds complacency. You need to keep your second book as fresh and exciting as the first. If it’s not fun to write, it probably won’t be fun to read, either.

In other words, approach the second book as a new race, not as a victory lap.

Take risks with your characters. Push them, prod them, and discover something new about them. Flip the world over and see what’s crawling along the underside. If you can surprise yourself with new twists and developments, chances are good that you’ll surprise your readers, too.

BALANCE

You write your first book with whatever stolen hours you can cobble together from work, sleep, and playtime. You become a miser with your free moments, the Ghost of Shouldn’t-You-Be-Writing always hovering nearby. You write, sometimes because you want to and sometimes because you need to.

Writing the second book is still like that, but there’s a clock ticking in your ear.

And revisions to complete on your first novel.

And this ominous thing called an “online presence” to build.

I thought I would have a handle on this squishy work/life balance thing by book two, but alas, I did not figure all my shit out in the span of a year. In fact, I’m now chuckling at the notion that I actually expected this to happen.

In fact, maybe that’s the real lesson. Keep your expectations real and manageable. Give yourself one thing to do well every day, and enjoy the small successes. You probably won’t figure the rest of your life out by the time you’ve written your second book.

But if you do, maybe drop the rest of us a hint?

SO SHALL YE REAP

Some writers have every scene and detail of their nascent series plotted and diagrammed before the first book is sold. Others make most of it up as they go along, which can be both exhilarating and nerve-racking when we introduce that ticking clock we discussed a moment ago.

I wrote The Buried Life without definitive plans for a sequel, but when the opportunity to begin Cities and Thrones arose, I found that I was ready and the way ahead clearer than I would have thought.

Once again, it’s all about groundwork. If you’ve sown your field well in the first book and seeded it with plenty of juicy world building details, character motivations, and story arcs, then you should find yourself with plenty to work with when you return to that territory for the second book.

Some of the pieces you set in motion in your first book will find their targets in the second. They’ll proceed with satisfying symmetry, landing more or less where you’d hoped.

Others will surprise you. They’ll careen along unexpected trajectories, tumbling farther and faster than you’d imagined. Minor characters will fight for center stage. Brief asides will become central plot points. Be on the lookout for surprises like these because they’ll give your story real momentum if you know how to harness them.

TAKE IT TO ELEVEN

At the end of your first novel, you’ve pulled out all the stops, blown the amps, and gone for broke. You’ve held nothing back, yet you’ve got to find some kind of direction for your sequel.

The only direction, my friends, is up.

There’s always something new and big to show, and even if you ended your last book with some major seismic activity, just remember that the aftershocks can often be bigger and louder.

So trace the consequences of events in the first book and pick up the next crisis or question. Take your writerly perspective and zoom out to show how your last finale changed the world at large. Or pan it left and follow the ripples to a new epicenter that’s set to buckle. Or zoom in, nice and tight, and show us what happens to the characters when the rug’s been pulled out from under them.

There’s plenty of story to tell, even when you’ve already pushed everything to ten. You just have to find eleven.

***

Carrie Patel is an author, narrative designer, and expatriate Texan. When she isn’t scribbling her own fiction, she works as a narrative designer for Obsidian Entertainment, where she wrote for Pillars of Eternity. Her work has also appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Cities and Thrones is her second novel.

Carrie Patel: Website | Twitter

The Buried Life: Amazon | B&N | Indiebound | Goodreads

Hey, folks! Out of spoons over here, so I’m taking a vacation.

A social media vacation, at least.

I’m gone this week to SDCC and the next week to NECon and then having some friends visit? So, for the next week, the blog is going to sit quietly in the corner and think about what it’s done. I’ll be on Twitter and Facebook only scarcely, though I won’t be entirely absent. I will be back to the blog for the release of The Harvest, which drops next Tuesday. (Preorder here.) No flash fiction challenge this week or next, though you will find some FIVE THINGS I LEARNED promo posts popping in on their respective Thursdays.

I also remind you that the new edition of Blackbirds is still on sale: $1.99 for digital.

Finally, Relentless Reading did a quicky interview with me about stuff and things.

Go buy awesome books and read them and tell people about them.

That is all.

Be good.

Click this link.

It’ll give you six random titles.

Click it only once.

And choose one of those six titles as the title of this week’s flash fiction.

Flash meaning: under 1000 words.

Your story is due by Friday, the 10th, at noon EST.

Post at your online space, link back here.

Easy-peasy, poke-and-squeezy.

Click, pick, and write.

Murders are happening outside Charlotte’s hottest nightspots. A new vampire society has set up shop in the sewers. And Jimmy Black’s about to run afoul of the Master of the City. If Jimmy weren’t already a vampire, the week ahead would be the death of him.

Between murder, monsters, pesky vampire ethics, and territorial disputes, Jimmy is about to discover how far he’s willing to go to save the world and one friend’s soul.

There are no easy choices, even for vampire geeks.

The boys are back with all-new monsters to battle, puzzles to unravel, and asses to kick in this fifth volume of the award-winning The Black Knight Chronicles series.

* * *

Have a Road Map

I often tell people that I screwed up when I started this series – I saved the world in the first book. And it’s true – I did. Because I didn’t start writing this as a series. I wrote a standalone novel about a pair of comic book geeks who got turned into vampires and decided to play Batman. Then a few people bought the book, and a few more, and a few more, and I started getting emails asking when the next book would be out. So I wrote one. Then I wrote another one. Then I sold the series, including three books I hadn’t written yet, to a publisher.

And we blew up the first three books and took a year rebuilding them. Along the way I had a long telephone conversation with my editor where we laid out the plan for the six books they had under contract. It was just a rough sketch, really, just an idea of where we were going with the series as a whole. But now, four years later, it’s come back to save my ass more than once. Not because it tells me where to go and when, but because it tells me where not to go, and when not to go there.

Having a road map keeps me from giving away secrets and resolving plot issues too early. If I know I’m working with six books, I don’t want to give away the Big Bad in Book #2, because then there’s no mystery in Books #3-5. It’s okay to reveal the villain in the end of Book #5 (which I do), because then you have Book #6 to build to a final battle.

Torture is Fun!

Not like that, you pervert. Put down the flogger and the Crisco. I’m talking about torturing my characters. I learned from the best – I’ve read a lot of Jim Butcher, and if anybody’s been put through the wringer, it’s Harry Dresden. I’m also a big Kim Harrison fan, and she’s not afraid to break a character or two to make an omelet, either.

I tore apart a lot of the world I’ve been building in this book. Not like in a Galactus come for dessert kind of tore apart the world, but some things we’ve come to take for granted are gone. And that makes things really hard on my protagonist, because his support network is failing. He doesn’t have all the people to lean on that he’s used to having, and that makes life a lot tougher.

It also makes for a stronger character (if he survives). Torturing characters has the added benefit of torturing readers, which is the only thing writers love more than torturing characters! I put Jimmy Black, the lead character in In the Still of the Knight, through a terrible wringer in this book, with the hopes that he comes out stronger in the end. We’ll see, I still have one book left on this contract. J

The Best Comedy Makes You Cry

I’m pretty outspoken in my opinion that M*A*S*H is the best show in the history of television. A lot of that has to do with Alan Alda’s nuanced performance as Hawkeye Pierce, but most of it comes from the fact that you never knew with that show whether you were laughing until you cried, or just crying until you couldn’t cry any more.

The writers of M*A*S*H were geniuses in using comedy to hide the horrors of war, until it was time to make a point. I write comedy. The Black Knight Chronicles is a comedic series. It’s typically very lighthearted and fun, until it comes time to make a point. There are a few points I focus on making in In the Still of the Knight, and I hope that the comedy provides a solid counter to the real things I’m talking about. It’s not easy, walking the line between comedy and drama, and a lot of things we just don’t deal with in a lot of genre fiction. In a way, this turned out to be a coming-of-age story, except my protagonist is in his early forties.

Being a Hero is a Solitary Business

The Black Knight Chronicles have been an ensemble series up until this book. In the Still of the Knight is where I took everything away from Jimmy Black, my main character. I took one of his best friends away, I took his girlfriend away, and I took his business partner/sidekick away. Because at the end of the day, the hero has to stand alone. This book is a stripping-down process, a peeling away of the accessories and helpers that Jimmy has had, until he stands alone against a seemingly insurmountable force. Because it’s only when everything is ripped away that we can see where the strengths of a character really lie. And it’s only through the fire that we can temper the steel. In the Still of the Knight is very much Jimmy’s tempering process, and we’ve all got to wait until Book #6 to find out of he’s been sharpened or shattered in the process.

Sometimes Art Mirrors Life, and that Sucks

I said earlier that I love to torture my characters, and I mentioned just above that I worked at taking a lot away from Jimmy in this book. Unfortunately, one reason this book is coming out in June 2015 instead of June 2014, is because 2014 was the year I got put through the fire myself. I changed jobs twice, spent half the year unemployed, and my mother died. So the year sucked. And I couldn’t get much writing done, because I wasn’t in a good headspace to write, so I wasn’t making any money there, putting me further and further into the spiral of depression. It wasn’t until after my mother’s death in September that I was really able to focus and move forward with this or any other projects. I’m fortunate to have a patient editor and patient fans, but it sucked.

So I learned that I don’t write well when my world is falling apart. I don’t know many people who do. I certainly put words down on the page, but most of them were terrible and I went back later and rewrote almost everything I’d touched. But a strange thing happened through that process – I was able to go deeper into the characters than I have before, able to touch their motivations and backstory more deeply, and I think a better book came out of it. So 2014 sucked, and it delayed the release, but it made it a better book in the end, which goes back to that whole tempering thing.

So I guess the central thing I learned through writing this book was that even if you think you’re in control, sometimes you’re not, and maybe the story you’re writing is really your own.

* * *

John G. Hartness is the author of The Black Knight Chronicles from Bell Bridge Books, a comedic urban fantasy series that answers the eternal question “Why aren’t there more fat vampires?” He is also the creator of the comic horror Bubba the Monster Hunter series, and the creator and co-editor of the Big Bad series of horror anthologies from Dark Oak Press and Media. 

In his copious free time John enjoys long walks on the beach, rescuing kittens from trees and recording new episodes of his ridiculous podcast Literate Liquors, where he pairs book reviews and alcoholic drinks in new and ludicrous ways. John is also a contributor to the Magical Words group blog. An avid Magic: the Gathering player, John is strong in his nerd-fu and has sometimes been referred to as “the Kevin Smith of Charlotte, NC.” And not just for his girth. 

John G. Hartness: Website

In The Still Of The Knight: Amazon | B&N

Blue-collar Seth can’t escape his small Nebraska town. Wealthy Quinn has no choice but to leave. They keep their unlikely new romance a secret: it’s too early to make plans, too late not to care. But it’s 1989. As politics suddenly get personal, Seth and Quinn find themselves fighting bare-fisted for their beliefs—and each other—in the clear light of day.

* * *

Timing matters.

Agents clamor for it now, but realistic, historical young adult fiction was kryptonite to agents and editors from 2008-2013. The following captures my experience of peddling ’89 Walls during an international economic collapse, the publishing industry’s subsequent version of its own Hunger Games, the e-print revolution, and the creation of special sections in bookstores for Paranormal Teen Romance.

Agents are human—not imbued with superpowers.

Here’s an amalgamated version of those five years’ worth of conversations with literary agents:

Bob the Agent: I’m looking for a fresh new voice telling a story I’ve never heard before!

Me: Here you go.

Bob: Great writing! But this is a political young adult novel. I can’t sell it.

Me: Really? Joan Bauer, David Levithan, Janet Tashjian, and Gary D. Schmidt did well with their political themes.

Bob: But teens don’t want to read any more political novels: they’re apolitical.

Me: You mean the millennials that are writing a new chapter of American civil rights history as they campaign for marriage equality?

Bob: Exactly. They’re reading Divergent and The Fault in Our Stars. I want the next one of those! Teens don’t care about 1989: it’s outdated.

Me: Some might call a 1989 setting “historical fiction.”

Bob: (hands over ears) La, la, la, I cannot hear you!

Me: The truth horrifies, I know. But the “Glee” generation views 40-somethings like you and me as “retro.” The incoming class of 2019 never experienced a time in which Russia posed a nuclear threat. To them, “Star Wars” is just a movie. My novel, ’89 Walls, is new material to the YA market.

Bob: You’re saying the days of my misspent youth qualify as historical fiction?

Me: Bob, it’s okay! The Eighties are back! Have you been to the movies lately? They’re showing “Anchorman 2,” “Dallas Buyers Club,” and “17 Again.” Americans watch “The Goldbergs” and “The Carrie Diaries” on TV. What better time to pitch a story set in the good old days of communicating in cursive?

Bob: Sure, but no one’s writing YA about the Eighties.

Me: Besides me, you mean? Eleanor and Park is a huge commercial success story. I think we have potential here to catch the wave of a nascent trend.

Bob: (Heavy sigh.) Ms. Pierson, young adults don’t want to read about misfits grappling with partisan politics and multiple sclerosis and apartheid and abortion. They want…

Me: Books about misfits dealing with domestic abuse, dropping acid, foster care, pedophiles, racism and bullying?

Bob: Exactly!

Me: Rainbow Rowell (Eleanor and Park), Chris Crutcher (Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes) and Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) rocked those stories, for sure.

Bob: My point is that politics and history per se are boring.

Me: Is it possible, Bob, that you’re underestimating the audience? Ellen Levine (In Trouble), Gennifer Choldenko (Al Capone Does My Shirts), and Gary D. Schmidt (The Wednesday Wars) all sold a lot of books. Elizabeth Wein’s Code Name Verity was the best novel I read all year.

Bob: Fine. But no one’s specifically interested in the Eighties as an historical era.

Me: Historians and journalists are sure taking a hard look at 1989, particularly in the wake of Mandela’s death, Russia’s shenanigans in the Ukraine and America’s recent withdrawal from Afghanistan. I read an opinion piece in the New York Times entitled “A History Lesson that Needs Relearning.” It opened with, “Suddenly the specter of the Cold War is back.” The market is primed—we just have to nudge it a little. Think of the fun crossover potential in the adult fiction market!

Bob: What do you think I am? A taste-maker?

Me: Uh…that is, actually, what you guys would have us writers believe. But I’ve spent the last few years seeking a home for realistic historical YA fiction during a recession, a Big Five blood bath, the rise of digital books, and the Stephenie Meyer phenomenon. I’ve seen—in real-time—why you’re risk-averse.

Bob: Right! Kids these days want to read Twilight!

Me: Dude, you’re missing my point. (And the Twilight ship has sailed. Publishers are literally posting “no more vampire novels” on their websites.)

Bob: Right! No more vampire novels. Publishers want another Harry Potter!

Me: They want another insanely successful book, yes. And thanks to J.K. Rowling, YA is still the book market’s fastest growing genre.

Bob: But your story is literary. Kids want to escape! No more downer novels!

Me: Uh, you mentioned that teens are reading The Fault in Our Stars and Divergent? (And isn’t dystopian the definition of “downer”)? Anyway, ’89 Walls isn’t a downer novel: it’s a love story with edgy, funny dialogue and a fun, steamy sex scene at the end.

Bob: I can’t sell sex to school libraries!

Me: You told me at a conference that we should write “the books that librarians love and kids hide from their parents.” As sex scenes go, this one is pretty wholesome. If kids want misogynist porn they’ll have to surf the Internet like everyone else.

Bob:

Me: My point, Bob, is that the wind-down of the (last) Cold War is about the sudden absence of America’s most reliable enemy. It’s a perfect setting for a coming-of-age novel about rivals falling in love and having to figure out what they stand for instead of against.

Bob: Don’t tell me how you think your book should be marketed.

Me: I thought you guys wanted writers to build platforms and be savvy about marketing.

Bob: Right. I need to know you can develop an audience for your novel.

Me: But only you can figure out the marketing angle even though I have fifteen years of non-profit public affairs experience, including marketing and communications consulting?

Bob: Exactly.

Me: But you do want me to speak confidently in public, give interviews, and do readings once the book is published.

Bob: Now you’re getting it.

Me: I think so: pre-publication, I’m a guileless, sensitive artist with nothing on my mind but the glory of polishing my craft and offering pure entertainment to my readers.

Bob: Yep.

Me: Then—when I get a contract—I metamorphose into a publicity and sales machine with my finger on the pulse of the Obama generation.

Bob: I’m so glad we had this little talk.

Me:

Having a bad literary agent is worse than not having one at all.

Okay, so my timing was terrible. As it turns out, so was the agent with whom I ended up signing. By the time I realized she was building her own career instead of mine, she’d already fired my manuscript off to three dozen editors in one email and seriously muddied the waters. In retrospect, it was like finding out that not only is your Prince Charming a pimp, but that he’s your pimp.

When all else fails, raise your expectations.

I craved a traditional publishing contract for the usual reasons: an advance, high editorial standards, broad marketing and distribution, collegial support, and the all-important stamp of legitimacy.

I did learn through my terrible agent (before firing her) that editors liked the writing but didn’t think they could sell politics to teens. Attempts to find a new agent confirmed that ’89 Walls was damaged goods. I looked into small presses. But when I got an offer, I couldn’t bring myself to sign the contract. Why turn over creative control and money-making potential to for all I knew were two guys with a software program?

It was a great day when I realized that “making it” in traditional publishing—at least with this particular historical, political, realistic and slightly steamy YA novel—would mean lowering instead of raising my standards. I found a mentoring press (Wise Ink Creative Publishing) to help me produce, distribute and market a book that could compete with Big 5 (4) titles.

Everyone feels like a fraud — it’s not just me (or you).

I figured out years ago that when you claim the title, “writer,” you are one. All you have to do is print yourself a business card. Becoming an author is a different story. If my long and detoured road to publication taught me anything, it’s that you only get to call yourself an author when you put on your big girl pants and act like one.

* * *

Katie Pierson freelances for Twin Cities non-profits, using her background in public policy and grassroots organizing to overthrow the patriarchy one introverted step at a time. When she’s not writing fiction, she returns library books, makes soup, and tries to be cooler than she really is by hip-hopping at the YMCA. She earned a B.A. in American History from the University of Pennsylvania (where she dabbled briefly in being a College Republican) and an M.A. in American History from the University of Minnesota. She lives with her family in a suburb of Minneapolis. You can reach her through her website, www.katiepierson.net.

Katie Pierson: Website

’89 Walls: Indiebound | Amazon | B&N

– Blackbirds is now a Kindle deal. Not just for today, but, in fact, for the month of July. It’s $1.99 right now, in fact. If you love me, you’ll tell people. If you hate me, you will rage-stitch a sampler of my face, fling it into the nearest urinal, and micturate angrily upon it. Which is your call. Your destiny is yours, pal. As Miriam herself is wont to declare: what fate wants, fate gets.

– I would also be remiss if I didn’t then go to note: if you like it, you can then pick up the sequels, Mockingbird and The Cormorant. (The book order, for those who don’t know, is: Blackbirds, then Mockingbird, then The Cormorant.) The fourth book, Thunderbird, is in editing as we speak. I also got a couple drafts on the cover, so we should have a final one to reveal soon. Then I’ll write the fifth book (tentatively titled The Raptor & The Wren) this fall and the sixth book next year (that one tentatively titled Vultures). YAY MORE MIRIAM BLACK.

– For those asking, the cover artist for these books is Adam Doyle!

– And hey! I’ve gone and uploaded a brand new book trailer. (Spoiler warning: it’s the same trailer as before, but with the new covers. Trailer done by the awesome dude that is Alan Stewart. The growly voice is by fellow author and bad-ass Dan O’Shea.)

– My SDCC schedule is as follows:

Friday, 11AM: Star Wars publishing panel, 7AB

Friday, 12:30PM: Signing AFTERMATH posters at Del Rey SW booth

Friday, 2:30PM: Signing ZEROES at Harper Collins #1029

Saturday, 10:30AM: Signing AFTERMATH posters at Del Rey SW booth

Saturday, 12 noon: Sci-Fi / Fantasy Family Feud, 7AB (and holy shit what a line-up: Ernie Cline, Leigh Bardugo, Pat Rothfuss, Brandon Sanderson, Naomi Novik, Austin Grossman, and, er, me?!)

Saturday 1:30PM: Sci-Fi / Fantasy Family Feud signing, AA09

– When I get back, it’s The Harvest launch at Let’s Play Books in Emmaus, PA. (7/14, 7pm)

– Just after that I’m guest of honor alongside Seanan McGuire at Camp NECon!