I read a lot of Fantasy. I love the rich worldbuilding. I love magic. I love fantastical creatures. The ultimate pleasure is disappearing into a rich, enchanting, new world with memorable characters. We are tackling tropes on the Blood Red Pencil this month, so I wanted to touch on a few troublesome, perhaps trite, Fantasy tropes and suggest ways to change them. 1. The Chosen One In a sense, the Protagonist is always the "chosen one." The protagonist is the character who ultimately solves the overall story problem. That said, they don't literally have to be "chosen" or "destined." They may just have the right skills, knowledge, or determination to win the day. I liked the character Kaz Brekker in Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows because he wasn't a "chosen one." She left that up to Alina in the Shadow and Bone series. Kaz was motivated to overcome adversity because of a rough childhood. He wasn't "perfect" or infallible. H...

Traditional publishing requires that you find an agent who submits to publishers and hopefully finds a home for your book. As a traditionally published author, you still have to write, revise, proofread, submit, get accepted. But your work isn't done there. You still have to revise and edit per the publishers instructions. They design the cover and come up with the promotional materials and some promotional opportunities, but you are still in charge of self-promotion. With the publishing market in flux, many writers prefer to self-publish. Doing so involves you donning not one but five hats. 1. Crafting the Product Writing a really good book means endless rounds of critiques, revisions, editing, and proofreading. If you target a specific genre, and understand it, you are half-way there. Learning how to write is a skill set. Your very first draft of your very first book will not be a best seller. Studying the craft of writing and practicing it is job one. Once you have a manuscript ...

Why I bought the book: Magic Lessons is a prequel to the book Practical Magic.  I am ashamed to admit I had never read Practical Magic (which I have now remedied along with book two in the series The Rules of Magic and a third will be out later this year The Book of Magic ). I will likely purchase her entire back list and add her to my top favorite writer list. I had enjoyed the 1998 movie with Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock. Magic Lessons traces the origin of the Owens bloodline starting with Maria Owens in the 1600s and her mother Rebecca. Rebecca leaves her daughter Maria with a woman named Hannah Owens, so she can chase love. Thus begins the Owens women's fraught entanglement with romantic love which seems doomed to bring them sorrow even as they help other women with their relationship woes. Hannah teaches Maria to always love someone who loves you back. However, like her wild mother, Maria falls for a weak man who leaves her pregnant and alone in the world. Maria follow...

For memoir month, I am thrilled to introduce you to one of my personal heroes, the amazing Marti MacGibbon. We met one day when she and her husband knocked on our door with a petition to keep a self-storage facility from being built next to the elementary school. We happily signed. They had moved in a few houses down and my husband and I were thrilled to find kindred spirits.  When I mentioned I wrote books, Marti told me about her self-published memoir Never Give In To Fear: Laughing All the Way Up from Rock Bottom . Memoir is not my usual jam, but I purchased it and loved it. With her gallows humor, Marti wrote about her move to California to work in comedy which soon turned into a nightmare of homelessness, addiction, and being sex trafficked to the Japanese Yakuza. Marti not only survived but thrived, using her experiences to help others. She gained professional certifications in ACRPS, (Advanced Certified Relapse Prevention Specialist, and the CAPMS (Certified Addiction-Free ...

If you haven't been introduced to Kerry Greenwood's twenty-one book cozy mystery series set in 1920s Melbourne, Australia, you are in for a treat. I streamed the entire series and read all the books in 2020. Phrynne Fisher (pronounced fry-nee) is a delightful amateur sleuth. Her war experience and intelligence work make her capacity for finding trouble believable. Her rags to unexpected riches backstory means Phrynne is free to do as she pleases and does not care who she offends. She returns to Australia from England, after a brief post war detour as a bohemian in Paris, to set up shop as a detective. In the television series, the costumes and sets are a feast for the eyes. The first television series follows the books fairly closely, with two exceptions I will discuss later. The writers were successful in maintaining the characters and feel of the books in the subsequent cases. Relationships in the books are slightly different than in the series. In the books, Phrynne's b...

My husband gifted me a Kindle Paperwhite for Christmas a few years ago. He had jumped on the Kindle bandwagon a few years before that. I was still stubbornly clinging to paper over plastic. Then we moved from the Midwest to Florida which involved serious downsizing. So the majority of our massive book collection had to go. Parting was such sweet sorrow. Finite Folio Cover My Kindle sat unused for a while other than to purchase a cover that made it look like a book. I gradually added to my Kindle library. Soon, I had more than one page of options and became frustrated until I learned how to create collections, which you can learn more about here . Still, I was not content. I missed actual bookshelves with books neatly lined up by author and series in order. As my Kindle content grew, I tired of searching through books I had already read. Around this time, on an unrelated note, Apple completely changed its Itunes store to favor streaming. Thank goodness I still had two iPODs and my musi...

Unless you were already living in a war zone, a global pandemic is the probably scariest thing you have experienced in a very long time. If you were already prone to depression and anxiety, there is nothing like a plague to ramp up the tension setting to high. It is okay to feel scared and frozen. To wonder why you should bother to write a book when the world feels like it is ending. What's the point? Who can afford to buy it? How could you possibly launch it? Are publishers even accepting new works? The fact is books are getting many of us through this difficult time. Book sales are up.  Some are reading dystopian books for reassurance. Fictional worlds survived. People carried on. In many countries, dictators are in power and authoritarianism is on the rise. We may be inspired by heroes who fought to overturn corruption. The same applies to historical books set in war time and disaster thrillers. There is comfort in knowing someone somewhere managed to survive natural disasters, ...

I have to admit I am not a hoarder of book advertising merchandise. Every month charities inundate our mailbox with with canvas totes, mailing labels, note pads, pens, calculators, blankets, pins, calendars, greeting cards, even nickles and dimes. However some readers love them. And they must be somewhat successful or the charities wouldn't keep sending them. 1. Should you include merchandise items as part of your marketing strategy?   It depends.   Do you make personal appearances (pre-quarantine and hopefully again post-quarantine)? Do you go to conventions, writer meetings, book clubs? Do local independent bookstores or libraries allow you to display items along with your book? Do you have a mailing list? Do you hold contests and raffles and giveaways? Can you afford it? There may or may not be a return on investment. You may want a few instead of hundreds. The allure of  Free Stuff Christmas is only three months away, so they also make terrific present...

At the moment, it feels a bit like the world is ending. People are dying in droves. Many are losing their livelihood. There is so much conflict and unrest. Lots of free-floating anxiety and depression running amok. I keep asking myself, why does writing matter right now? Who really cares what I have to say? The world has gone mad. Our country is in free fall. It feels like there is no future. Then I remind myself that humanity has been here many times before and we somehow managed to not only survive but thrive anew. So here are some points to consider: 1. The world will eventually return to normal. If you are stuck in quarantine when you would normally be out and about and have the resources, you could be prolific. Shake off the anxiety or use it to fuel your work. Get into your bubble. Give a middle finger to fate. Use defiance to propel you to invest in the future. At the very least, you can journal during this time to ease your soul. Do it simply for self-care or use th...

With life on hold, I have had endless hours to catch up on my To Be Read pile. Quite a few of the Fantasy YA novels are about dystopian societies. As I read and listened to the daily news, a few things came to mind about story building a dystopian novel. 1. Dystopian novels often minimize or ignore the range of responses from people. As I watch the arguments over quarantine, masks, and social distancing play out, it is obvious there are more than two sides to the characters dealing with the overall story problem. There are bands of resistance that want different things. 2. I am not certain that the level of dread and panic is presented enough in books. There is a lemming effect too, where people herd and move in different directions as a pod. How do your characters deal with their panic? What soothes them? What traumatizes them? 3. Stakes are crucial to every story, but should be the highest alert level in a dystopian thriller. 4. There are shades of gray. Even well-meaning b...

I have been in quarantine for months, both because I am at risk and because I have been ill (but no proof it is COVID). Luckily, we are "retired," so there is nowhere we have to be other than doctor appointments (telehealth now), and the pharmacy. I have to give props to all of the books, movies, and streaming stories for keeping me sane. I read the entire Poldark saga books. Reread all of Anna Huber's The Anatomist's Wife series. Several Carol Goodman books. Cinda Chima Williams fantasy Seven Realms and Shattered Realms series, Deanna Raybourn's Veronica Speedwell series, and the Ash Princess series by Laura Sebastian just to name a few. TV series are too many to list.  As I wrote about in Story Building Blocks: The Four Layers of Conflict , most stories follow a comforting, expected flow. There are variations on the theme but they go something like this: A problem presents, characters are forced to do something about it. Things go wrong, creating new...

It has never been easier to learn about writing from home in your spare time while wearing your pajamas. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, there are college courses, Master Classes, and Great Courses. Some are free, others are low cost (extremely low compared to a college course) or free. You can learn from well-versed instructors and famous professional writers. Online Writing Courses  are provided by many universities from beginning to advanced classes. Great Courses has excellent writing classes you can order on DVD (with print books) and/or access them online. They add classes frequently from Building Great Sentences to How to Publish Your Book from Jane Friedman. Writing Master Classes are taught by famous writers such as: Neil Gaiman, R L Stine, Judy Blume, James Patterson, and Margaret Atwood to name a few. They add classes frequently. You can purchase the classes individually or subscribe for a year ($180 as of 03/20202) and watch as many as you like....

Whether a one day session, one week conference, or a month-long writing workshop writing related events are a good way to commune with other writers. They are opportunities to network and get your name out there. In some instances, you can meet and mingle with editors and agents. Some offer critiques or pitching sessions. Nowhere will you find a higher concentration of introverts enjoying each other's company. Local conferences are a good place to meet potential critique groups or recruit members. Some are free. Some require a fee. Some are more social than others. Many are for new writers, but a few dig deep into craft. You should choose an event that speaks to your needs and desires. January 9-19, 2020 – Seaside, Oregon The Pacific University Residency Writers Conferenc e in Seaside, Oregon https://www.pacificu.edu/masters-fine-arts-writing/residency-writers-conference January 13-17, 2020  Key West Literary Seminar and Writers' Workshop Program ,...