Horse Charmer guest post

Today I'm participating in the Horse Charmer Virtual Tour. First, here's the cover and blurb for this YA fantasy:

A gifted princess. A special horse. A quest for the truth.

At sixteen years old, Cassia would rather spend her days in the royal stables than in the royal court. But as the eldest child of King Robet and Queen Sarahann she obediently performs her duties as the Princess of Karah. 

Her safe world changes forever when her father is murdered in the neighboring kingdom of Vespera. Cassia grapples with his loss as her mother prepares her for her new role as queen. Her first task - she must travel to Vespera to marry a prince she barely knows to fulfill the treaty her father signed just before his death. 

Nothing is as simple as it seems with political intrigues and unusual powers shadowing Cassia on her search to find out who killed her father and why.

I have the author, Angelia Almos, with me talking about her first experience riding a horse. Take it away, Angelia!

It’s funny that Kelly asked me to talk about my first experience riding a horse. I have always remembered going on this pony ride when I was little that wasn’t like the traditional pony rides. Usually, a pony ride is run one of two ways. 1) the pony is hooked up to this merry-go-round like contraption where they walk in a circle like a carousel. Or 2) you are hand-walked on a course or a little trail which has been set up by the pony ride people. Every time I come across any pony rides, it is one of these two.

Yet, I have this memory of this “track” where the ponies were turned loose and would go one of three speeds. The slow inside walk track. The fast middle trot track. And the super fast canter track. This has been something I have remembered and think of and wonder, was it a dream? No one I have ever mentioned it to has been to one like this.

Imagine my surprise and delight when earlier this spring I headed to Los Angeles for a girls only trip with my daughters. On one of the days we decided to explore Griffith Park and drive around. At one of the entrances is a pony ride place. We pull in and I couldn’t believe what I saw. It was the very track I have “remembered” forever. The ponies turned loose in a groups with their riders tied to the saddles as they walked on the inside track, trotted on the middle track, and (though different from my memory) bigger ponies trot even faster on the outside track.

My youngest had to take a ride and though wanted to do a fast pony decided to do a walker since the trotting line was looooooong. While there I texted my dad to ask if this was the place I had always remembered. He didn’t remember it specifically since I always went on any pony ride we came across. But he did say they did take me to Griffith Park when I was little (before I was 5 and started riding lessons) and if that place was there then that I would have demanded to go on a pony ride. I wish I took a picture so I could show it here. But here is the website if you are curious - http://www.griffithparkponyride.com/

So, I am pretty sure I reconnected with my first remembered horseback ride. 

For the rest of you, have you ever ridden a horse? (Confession: I think horses are beautiful, but I'm too chicken to ride one.)

LITTLE VICTORIES: Or, The Serial’s a Killer

Today, I'm happy to welcome my publishing house sister, Stephanie Wardrop. She's the author of Snark and Circumstance, which released February 5, 2013 through Swoon Romance. Stephanie and I found ourselves in the same position of having to take a novel and break it up into a series of novellas. Stephanie's here today to tell you about her experience.

 Hi, everybody! I’m Stephanie Wardrop, author of Snark and Circumstance, checking in with my Swoon Romance serial sister Kelly Hashway about the subject of serialized e-novellas.

Like Kelly, I never set out to write an e-novella series. I did not, in fact, know such a thing existed. Because I am a 

I mean, I wasn’t even thinking about e-books at the time.  When I was writing Snark and Circumstance, I was thinking about NOVELS.  I was thinking Snark would come out looking something like this 

something you would open up and then close and it would sit all nice and neaton a shelf somewhere, waiting patiently for you to open it again.

So when an editor at Swoon Romance called to say she was interested in the book but wanted to publish it as a series of e-books, I was like this

But then I thought about Jane Austen, whose Pride and Prejudice inspired Snark, and whose books, like most nineteenth-century novels, came out as TRIPLE DECKERS : one novel was divided into three books coming out months apart and each ending on a cliffhanger so that every reader would be counting down the days until they could buy the next installment.  And I thought 

BRILLIANT! I’LL DO IT!

Now all I had to do was figure out how to cut the thing into four pieces, all equally engaging and action-packed and hilarious.

Right.

There are some definite advantages to serializing. For one, you get not ONE cover reveal, but FOUR!  I wish I could show you my second cover, because it is, as my publisher says, SASSY, but publishers guard unreleased covers the way Coca Cola guards its formula, the way 

Colonel Sanders guards his eleven secret herbs and spices, so I can’t.

On the other hand, four covers means four titles. It took me three years to come up with the title of Snark and Circumstance, so to hear I had about forty-eight hours to come up with three more set me into a state of paralytic frenzy.  (Trust me – this term sounds oxymoronic and impossible, but I bet any writer who’s faced a deadline knows what I mean). I could fill the New York Public Library with all of my rejected titles, but I eventually came up with three more that didn’t totally suck!

But for me, the biggest challenge has been that four separate texts means four not-so-separate but individually complete narrative arcs.  Because each story has to simultaneously – and paradoxically, perhaps –

*further the plot and characterization from the previous installment

*be able to stand on its own as a separate self-contained text

*not bore anyone so much that they don’t want to read the next one!

How do you manage all of those things at once?  How do you catch new readers up to speed about who the characters are and what they want and how they feel about each other (and where they live and what they look like and how old they are) without boring the readers who were with you in the first installment(s)? How do you balance exposition (the background for the current installment) without falling into an information dump? 

It ain’t easy. But no writer worth reading shrinks from challenges, right?

Most of us remember this from ninth grade, the dreaded PLOT DIAGRAM:

If you recall, this is the arc of the whole novel, so in a regular novel, all the really exciting climactic stuff would be happening in the middle (well, in actuality, it’s much more likely to happen three quarters of the way through, if not even further in. Think about it. You’re not going to read another hundred pages AFTER the epic battle, after Harry Potter finally defeats the forces of darkness or Romeo and Juliet are both found dead. That would be like sitting in the movie theater so you could watch the kids in their uniforms sweep up your popcorn tubs and throw your discarded drink cups into garbage bags. Pointless.). At any rate, following this standard narrative arc in a series would mean that the middle two books would be nonstop action and the last one would be horrendously dull. But again, that’s not quite true despite what this little graph above says. In actuality the middle books of a series, if they followed this proscribed arc of a novel, would be kind of tedious. The main character would get themselves into all sorts of trouble, dig themselves in deeper and deeper, and there would be no relief for them at all until they got to Book Four.  Which wouldn’t work.  Even if you HATED the main character, you wouldn’t enjoy the experience, essentially, of seeing them flogged for two whole books – and you wouldn’t pay to see that happen (or to read it happening).

So the trick, for me, is to work with LITTLE VICTORIES in Books Two or Three.

I’m learning that I have to get my main character into all sorts of smallish troubles -- misunderstandings, arguments, humiliations that don’t feel smallish at all to her – and get her out of them in each installment. (And in Books Two and Three my main character, Georgia, gets into some trouble involving  charming drunks, sightings in the family planning section of CVS, and scarlet letters.) But she cannot resolve the BIG TROUBLE that has gotten her into all of the smallish troubles in the first place until the end, Book Four. Such big troubles for main characters are often defined by fancy ninth-grade literary terms like HUBRIS, meaning excessive pride.  Or they may suffer an inability to a have sense of humor about oneself or a major lack of confidence that prevents them from emerging as the superhero they need to be until the last volume of the series.

So in Book Two I might resolve one or two smallish troubles. I may end it with two sisters no longer fighting like dogs or

But the sisters won’t come to appreciate each other for who they truly are yet.  Not until Book Four:

Halfway through the serialization process for Snark, this is what I have learned so far, through the process of writing and revising.

But I have also learned, as you can see in this post, that there is nothing NOTHING that cannot be best illustrated on the web by pictures of kittens.

Guest Post: Amy Lignor

What’s the Real Selling Point of Your Book?

The Cover!

We are a completely visual society. From computers to phones to iPods to all the vibrant colors coming at us from almost every direction, we usually make our decisions based on how the ‘scene’ effects us. Colors, pictures - these are used in many different ways: From scaring us on the news with graphic images to making us fall in love with a product because a cute, white, fuzzy puppy was on the commercial, and we can’t forget about it. This is how heavily we rely on images to find out what we really love or hate.

When it comes to the literary world, cover art is one of - if not THE most important - part of selling your book. Millions will buy a book written by Stephen King, JK Rowling, Tom Clancy, Dean Koontz, J.D. Robb - and it’s because they already know the ‘name.’ They are already a fan because these writers have been doing this a good, long time and have built a fan base that is completely loyal. In fact, they don’t much care what’s on the cover of the latest Stephen King book; just as long as his name appears on the cover that’s good enough to make the sale.

But for smaller, unknown, or debut authors, cover art is sometimes more important than plot. Now, don’t get me wrong, the story has to be great in order to get the wonderful reviews you need to build a reading list of loyal fans, but the very first thing a reader will judge about your book is the cover. It has to be outstanding. It has to grab the attention of the reader and make them want to research the title further. They need to be lured into the story, and once the book is purchased, THEN it’s up to you to thrill them and excite them with your characters, storylines, etcetera.

Finding a cover artist who can take a book and literally create the image that YOU know you want because, as the author, you’ve been thinking and dreaming about it for years, is difficult. A lot of cover artists don’t even read the manuscript, which I find hard to understand seeing as that they have to have some background about the book and what you’re trying to say in order to even begin to work up a design. But, what can I say? There are some designers out there who work as if they’re on an ‘assembly line’ and just cannot put in the time it takes to understand or even like your story.

I say all this because I was one of the lucky ones. When The Angel Chronicles found a home with Tribute Books, I was introduced to their cover designer - a woman by the name of Emma Michaels. (http://emmamichaels.blogspot.com)

Emma is not just an artist who draws what the author wants. She is one of those rare people who read the book cover to cover, comes up with ideas about various scenes, and discusses options and paths to take in order to create the perfect cover. She takes suggestions, ideas and really works with the author to make the book a unique masterpiece that fans really take a shine to.

Emily and Matthew have been in my mind since I was thirteen years old. Seeing as that I was born when Jesus was just a boy, that’s a long time to have these imaginary people in your brain. Emma Michaels had the amazing skill and unwavering talent to take my ideas and my story and draw the characters as if she was looking at them face to face in my own head.

So, remember, whether you go the self-publishing route, sign on with an independent, a small press - whatever it may be - make sure to remember that the cover of your book is the very first thing readers will see. And if the cover doesn’t ‘speak’ to them, the book is automatically dead in the water - even if the next Gone with the Wind or Harry Potter awaits the reader inside.

Until Next Time, Everybody,

Amy

Here's the synopsis for Gilded Wings:
When Matt and Emily are sent on their second mission they have no idea how truly dark human nature can become...

Emily never wanted to face humans again. With the heartache that went on down below, she’s still trying to figure out how to save souls that don’t deserve saving. The only one she wants to see again is Jason - the young man she fell in love with who became the soulmate she simply can’t forget...

Matt was trained to protect and defend the souls down below. Longing to feel the heartfelt emotions that come from being human, Matt wants nothing more than to have just one life - one chance - to live and love the girl of his dreams...

The powerful team find themselves in a brand new century, living in the Gilded Age of New York City. Emily takes over the body of Anya, a young Russian girl who arrives on Ellis Island after a hideous tragedy. There she meets up with a strangely familiar young man by the name of Drew Parrish, who helps Anya survive in an unknown world of luxury, snobbery and…obsession.

What Anya’s inner angel doesn’t know is that the soul she loves is also back. This time around Jason goes by the name of Max Carrow. Once a quiet and kind boy, he’s now part of the ‘Four Hundred Club,’ and wants nothing more than to be among the most admired as he climbs the shaky ladder of society’s elite. 

As two worlds merge, Emily and Matt struggle under the weight of their “Gilded Wings.” Not only will they have to figure out who they should fight to save, but they must also face a romantic choice that could destroy them both. 

And here's an excerpt for you:

Emily rocked quietly, staring at Gabriel sitting stoic on his tall stool. His elbow rested on his knee, his fist supported the weight of his chin, and the old spectacles set crookedly on his angular nose. Gabriel was an avid reader, always studying. He worked hard to understand the paths that were being chosen by the humans below.

Emily tried not to laugh as she studied the face that was pulled into a deep frown. His eyebrows looked stuck together, glowering as he concentrated on the real life story of
yet another partnership that had been below and brought back their report on what they had seen.

“Something wrong?” Jerking his head up, Gabriel’s book went flying off his lap, and his glasses hit the floor.

Out of the corner of her eye, Emily noticed that the long, dark hair of the sleeping Russian girl, Anya, had transformed back into her own trademark auburn curls. She smiled at Gabriel’s annoyed expression. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You’re getting quieter as you get older,” he grunted. 

“Well, you always said we should be seen and not heard,” Emily grinned. 

Gabriel’s eyebrow climbed up his forehead. “Exactly when have you ever listened to anything I say?” 

“I’m like a sponge. I remember everything.” 

Gabriel snorted his agreement and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Why back so soon?” 

“I’m confused.”

“Already?”

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Writing Short Fantasy With James Hutchings

Today, James Hutchings, author of The New Death and Others is guest posting about writing short fantasy, so without further ado, here's James:

I think that when you say 'fantasy', most people get a specific picture; huge books, probably a series of huge books, set in an imaginary, medieval-like world (maps of which are at the front), in which a humble hero gets caught up in a battle for the fate of that world...all very much based on the template set down by Lord of the Rings, perhaps as interpreted by games like Dungeons & Dragons and World of Warcraft. I like Tolkien, but I think he's overshadowed a lot of other styles of fantasy which I think are just as interesting. 

 I mostly write short stories. Often they're very short; three hundred words or less. I'm very influenced by Lord Dunsany. He's not very well-known now, but at one time he was one of the 'greats' of what we now call fantasy fiction. Although he wrote longer works, he did a series of very short stories which often had allegorical characters such as Death and Fame. One of his most famous books is 'Fifty-One Tales', which is now in the public domain so you can find it for free online. 

I've included a story that I wrote which is written in a Dunsany-like style. It's probably not going to make anyone throw away their Game of Thrones collection, but at least I hope to show people that there are other ways to go about it. 

THE GOD OF THE POOR 

In the beginning of the world the gods considered all those things which did not have their own gods, to decide who would have responsibility and rulership. 

"I will rule all flowers that are sky-blue in colour," said the Sky-Father.
"I will listen to the prayers of migratory birds, and you all other birds," the goddess Travel said to him. And so it went. 

At last all had been divided, save for one thing.
"Who," asked the Sky-Father, "shall have dominion over the poor?" 

There was an awkward silence, until the Sky-Father said,
"Come - someone must. Those with no gods will grow restless and cunning, and in time will cast us down, and we shall be gods no more." 

"Not I," said blind Justice, and her stony face flashed a momentary smirk at the thought. "Why not Fame or Fortune?"

"Darling I don't think so," said the sister goddesses together. 

There was a long pause. The gods shuffled their feet and avoided one another's gaze. At last a voice broke the silence. 

"I will," said Death.

Thanks, James! You can check out James's book here.

Your turn. Do you write short stories? Could you write a 300-word fantasy?