sequels | Meredith Mansfield, Author

Posts Tagged ‘sequels’

Synopses and Ancillary Material

Posted in writing, tagged e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, sequels, series, synopsis, writing on January 11, 2015| 2 Comments »

I hate synopses. I’m pretty sure I’ve blogged about that before. I hate writing them. I’m not very fond of reading them, either.

And I shouldn’t have to do them for books I publish myself, right? Synopses are just something agents force us to do, right?

Wrong. See, one of the decisions I made when I published The Voice of Prophecy

was to include a synopsis of what had happened in the first book, The Shaman’s Curse.

Just in case anyone picked up the second book first, or, you know, didn’t remember what had happened in the first book. It turned out not to be as brief a synopsis as I’d hoped.

I just finished adding the synopsis for The Voice of Prophecy. About 18 pages combined. If I keep this up, by the fourth (and final) book, I’m going to have a very long synopsis. Which means I need to do some more work, revising this monster down to a more manageable size. Trying to make it more interesting wouldn’t hurt, either. I think I’ll have to get some of my critique partners involved in that.

Also, because of Amazon’s Look Inside feature, I may have to consider moving the synopsis to the back of the book. Which doesn’t make very good intuitive sense, but that may be the way it has to be.

Especially since I’m also considering adding other ancillary material. I still haven’t got the map quite the way I want it, but maybe in time for Beyond the Prophecy.

Through the second book, nearly everything took place in Caere, at Zeda, or in the Valley. Or, of course, somewhere in between those points. So it was possible to follow pretty easily without a map. In the third book, more parts of this world start to come into play, especially Kausalya and Tysoe.

And then there’s this quick reference to how the characters are related to each other.

Hmm. Maybe I’ll break that last one into two charts.

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Review of Prophecy of the Six

Posted in writing, tagged e-publishing, fantasy, reviews, sequels, series, Young Adult on January 7, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Prophecy of the Six released yesterday, but I got to read it early. Here’s my review.

I love this sequel to Alchemy even more than the first book. And that’s saying something.

Imagine that magic is contagious. And causes insanity. Mages who survive the initial infection have to be controlled, sent to special schools that resemble prisons, or locked away in insane asylums.

Now prepare to follow four infected teens as they try to navigate the fine line between magic and madness—and determine who they can really trust. And just what part they have in the Prophecy of the Six. For that matter, what is the prophecy? Because no one will tell them.

Suspicious Seb, super senses and healing, for whom odors, sounds, bright colors, and rough textures are torture and who lives and breathes conspiracy theories.

Alternately fragile and daredevil Ana, alchemy and prophecy, who possesses the rare ability to invest inanimate objects with magic. Sometimes stolen magic. Sometimes her own. But whose sanity is threatened whenever such an object is used.

Confident Sam, temp and pushing, maybe the sanest of the four—if love doesn’t destroy him and take one or more of the others with him.

Snarky Juliette, alchemy and pushing, whose infection has robbed her of everything she loved or wanted. Her anger and fear could take them all down, but her magic may be the most powerful of all.

You’re in for a great roller-coaster ride with this book.

I received a copy of this book in return for an honest review. I honestly loved it.

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Outlining vs. Discovery Writing

Posted in writing, tagged e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, Learning, sequels, series, short stories, writing on January 4, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I know I’ve blogged about this before. I consider myself a modified discovery writer. Modified because I once wrote a whole novel-length work that didn’t come out to be a story. I knew it wasn’t a story as I was writing the end, though it took me–back then–a few tries to figure out why.

The reason was because it wasn’t organized around a central conflict. Once I figured that out, I knew how to fix it. (I’ll confess here, that not-a-story, written back in 2009, was actually the very earliest version of what became THE VOICE OF PROPHECY.)

See, you really can fix anything in the revisions. I need to keep reminding myself of that as I work on the first draft of Book 3 in the DUAL MAGICS series, BEYOND THE PROPHECY. Part of my brain keeps wanting to slow down and make it like a revision, not a first draft.

Just get the story down. Fix it later.

After that experience, I no longer just launch blindly into a story. (Well, sometimes I will on the rare occasions that I write a short story, but that’s not nearly the same investment of time that a novel is.) I try to at least map out the central problem and the high–or low–points of the story. Not anything like a real outline. Just a few paragraphs to guide me along the way.

I’ve done that for BEYOND THE PROPHECY, but that doesn’t stop me from getting things a little out of order.

Sometimes, that central problem is the antagonist. The Dark Lord (whichever particular variety of Dark Lord appears in a given story) must be stopped. And the main character’s internal journey and growth is a secondary plot. But sometimes that’s reversed and the internal journey is the main conflict, while the antagonist is more of a complication. THE VOICE OF PROPHECY was like that, which is probably what threw me off years ago and why it took me becoming a better writer to be able to pull it off.

BEYOND THE PROPHECY is not like that. In Book 3, the antagonists come back to the fore. Yes, I meant that to be plural. There are two. If you’ve read the excerpt of BEYOND THE PROPHECY included in the (ebook version) of THE VOICE OF PROPHECY, then you know Gerusa’s back and making more trouble–and not just for Vatar. The other antagonist is actually someone (or someones) from the first book, THE SHAMAN’S CURSE. (No, it’s not the shaman come back to life.) And, eventually, they’re going to join forces.

The reason this topic came up today is that I started to write that chapter, then realized I was making that alliance way too early. That’s got to happen much nearer the end of this book.

That’s okay. I’ve written the chapter (or most of it) and it’ll probably stand as is, at least for the first draft. Just not where it is. Now I have to go back and figure out what does happen in that space. My few paragraphs of proto-outline don’t cover everything.

And remind myself, it doesn’t have to be perfect in this draft. That’s what the final draft is for.

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2015 Writing Goals

Posted in writing, tagged critiques, e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, Middle Grade, Multiple Projects, revisions, sequels, series, short stories, writing, Young Adult on December 31, 2014| 2 Comments »

For 2015 my writing goals are:

BEYOND THE PROPHECY (Book 3 of the Dual Magics series): Finish the first draft. Revise. Get critiques. Revise again. Polish. Format. And Publish.
Tie-in Dual Magics short stories: “Modgud Gold”, “Hunter and Huntress”, possibly “The Seeker”. These stories expand on the events of the novels. Some things that there just wasn’t room for in the novels. Often from the point of view of side characters.
MAGE STORM: my middle grade adventure fantasy. There’ll be at least two periods when I need to let BEYOND THE PROPHECY rest so I can come back to it with fresh eyes. During one of those, I want to go back over this story. Possibly change the age of the main character. Then give it a try with a small press.
DAUGHTER OF THE DISGRACED KING: This one is complete and ready to go. I’ll query it for a little longer, but there’s also a good chance I’ll just decide to go ahead and publish it myself.
BOOK 4 of the Dual Magics series (No title yet): Start the first draft for publication likely in 2016.
At some point, I’m likely going to need to go play in a different sandbox for a while to keep things fresh. That will likely mean work on either DREAMER’S ROSE or that weird Oz story that’s been tickling around in the back of my brain for a while now.

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Reviews

Posted in writing, tagged e-publishing, fantasy, reviews, sequels, series, writing on December 17, 2014| 1 Comment »

The Voice of Prophecy

only became available three days ago and it’s already got four reviews. Good ones, too.

This makes me very happy. It’s really hard to overestimate the importance of reviews to a writer–especially an indie author. Reviews act as a kind of social validation for new readers that other people have read this and liked it. It makes it just that bit more likely that they’ll buy it.

They might help the book get onto certain lists at Amazon, which increases visibility. (The Voice of Prophecy has been doing well on both the Top 100 and Hot New Releases lists for Sword and Sorcery and Epic Fantasy, too.)

Reviews also help to make certain types of ads possible. Most of the better performing sites won’t even consider a book without a minimum number of reviews. Again, visibility.

The less-good reviews and even a (hopefully) few bad reviews will come, too. I try to take those philosophically. No story works for everyone. And the bad reviews serve to validate the good ones–or so they say.

These reviews are a great early Christmas gift. So, thank you to everyone who takes the time to leave a review.

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Getting Back Into the Swing

Posted in writing, tagged e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, Real Life, sequels, series, writing on December 14, 2014| Leave a Comment »

The Voice of Prophecy is all set to release tomorrow.

In celebration, The Shaman’s Curse will be free tomorrow only. So, if you haven’t read it, here’s your chance.

And now I’m beginning to build up momentum on the third book in the series, currently titled Beyond the Prophecy (subject to change, just like The Ignored Prophecy became The Voice of Prophecy).

I’m on the second scene of Chapter 11: Escape. (See how I just threw that title in there to pique your interest? Who’s escaping? And from what?) And I’m really excited about a couple of the upcoming chapters. So, full steam ahead–or at least as much as the demands of the season permit. I’ve got a couple of weeks off coming up, so I hopefully will make some real progress during that time. (Of course, there are some other projects around the house that need to get done–or at least started–during that time, too.)

Back to work, now. Well, after I take the dogs out, anyway.

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Shifting Gears

Posted in writing, tagged e-publishing, fantasy, sequels, series, writing on December 10, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Now that The Voice of Prophecy is all set to be sent out into the world on Monday

–and I’ve had a short break–it’s time to get back to work on the first draft of the third book in the series, Beyond the Prophecy.

I started by reading through the first ten chapters I’d already drafted to get back into that story. There’s a problem with that, though. I had to restrain myself from revising as I went. Editor brain was still active and that won’t work for writing a first draft. I settled for making a couple of notes.

I did start writing Chapter 11. Barely. Like, I’ve written one whole sentence. Still, it’s a start. The shift from editing to drafting is always hard.

I have some really good ideas about what happens in some of the chapters immediately ahead though. I can already feel the excitement starting to build.

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Cover Reveal – Prophecy of the Six

Posted in writing, tagged Cover Art, fantasy, sequels, series, writing on December 8, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Three of my writing friends also have a book launching soon. Also the second book in a series. And it even also has Prophecy in the title. I’ve had a chance to read both books in this series and they’re really, really good.

I’m excited to host the Cover Reveal of Prophecy of the Six, Book Two of the Prophecy Breakers series by Sheena Boekweg, Melanie Crouse, and Sabrina West. The cover was designed by Darren Boekweg of Boekweg Books Publishing and Cover Design.

We didn’t know how much we had to gain by being infected with magic. We found a purpose, we found a destiny, and we found each other.

But California isn’t the new start we were promised. Dr. Child may be gone, but now we must face a military school, dangerous secrets, and a prophecy that has half the country wanting us dead. When the line between enemies and allies blurs, Sam, Juliette, Ana and I need to choose between love and sanity, between magic and survival.

Paradise has a cost. When the authorities are suddenly giving you whatever you want, they’re going to demand everything in return. And that’s a price not all of us are strong enough to pay.

Freedom feels like safety, but it’s not. There are no walls here. No place they won’t be coming for us.

No place we won’t destroy.

About Alchemy

Book 1 in the Prophecy Breakers series

We didn’t know how much we had to lose until we were infected with magic. Sam was in love, Juliette was the main caretaker for her siblings, and Ana and her dad planned the best parties in New York. But we lost it all when we were shipped to Chebeague, an exclusive school for newly infected mages.

Everyone knows about the mages, those who survive the infection and end up with magical abilities. We’ve seen the power of magic, the high-paying jobs, and the world fame. But we never saw the cost. We didn’t know we’d be forced to give up everything: sanity, family, even the right to talk on the phone.

We didn’t know mage was just another word for prisoner.

In 2014, Alchemy was named on of the top 50 self-published books worth reading. On December 8,9, and 10th you can buy it for free on Amazon.

For a limited time, Funny Tragic, Crazy Magic and Hidden Magic are also available for free.

About the Authors

Sheena Boekweg, Melanie Crouse, and Sabrina West met online, (which isn’t as weird as it used to be) and blog together at The Prosers.

Their first collaborative project, Alchemy (Prophecy Breakers #1), was voted one of the top fifty self published novels worth reading by Indie Authorland.

Sheena Boekweg is the author of Funny Tragic Crazy Magic, and The Waxling (forthcoming). She is a mom of three from Utah and is prepared to survive a zombie apocalypse.

As a mom of four, Melanie Crouse thinks that parenthood is exactly like a zombie apocalypse. Melanie Crouse is the author of excuse notes, thank you cards, and the novel Hidden Magic.

Sabrina West is a writer and wildlife biologist living in San Diego, California. Her short fiction has appeared in markets such as Cover of Darkness; Strange, Weird and Wonderful Magazine; and Kayelle Press’s Night Terrors Anthology.

We love hearing from our readers, so drop us a line at theprophecybreakers@boekwegbooks.com, on facebook, twitter, or Internet stalking Benedict Cumberbatch.

Add it on Goodreads HERE

There’s also a rafflecopter giveaway. Unfortunately, that code is incompatible with WordPress. Just go over to The Prosers to enter.

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All Set

Posted in writing, tagged e-publishing, fantasy, Multiple Projects, Real Life, sequels, series, writing on December 7, 2014| 2 Comments »

The Voice of Prophecy is all ready to go.

The final files have been uploaded for the Kindle version, which will release on December 15th. You can get it for only $0.99 during the pre-order.

Yesterday, I approved the proof for the print version. That will most likely be available from Amazon sometime this week (Wednesday to Friday).

So, this weekend, I’ve been taking a little time to decompress before diving back into Book 3, Beyond the Prophecy. (It always takes a few days to turn off the editor part of my brain so I can write a first draft again.)

Meanwhile, I’ve been working on the Christmas decorating.

The pre-lit strand on this tree burned out. (Actually, it was the controller that used to make it do interesting effects.) I’ve supplemented for this year with what I had. For next year, I think I’ll get another rope light. I like the garland effect.

Many of those ornaments are hand made, either by me or my mother.

Btw, those are just empty boxes underneath. Just part of the decorations. The tree just always looks more finished with something under it.

This little one sits in the corner next to the entertainment center. That’s actually also another (much shorter) rope light strand. I have no idea why it photographed that way. Notice the very old-style tree topper (in pink). That used to be on my Christmas tree when I was little. (My very own little tree in my room because that was the only way they could get me away from the lighted Christmas tree in the living room to put me to bed.)

Oh, and those stockings hanging next to it? Those were knitted for my brother and me for our first Christmases by a family friend. It’s all about tradition in this house.

This fiber-optic tree sits on the other side of the entertainment center. (I love fiber optics.)

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Yay!

Posted in writing, tagged e-publishing, edits, events, fantasy, pre-orders, Real Life, revisions, sequels, series, writing on December 3, 2014| 2 Comments »

This is a good morning, despite the rain and the fact that I’m going to have to go out and stand in it in about an hour.

The pre-order for THE VOICE OF PROPHECY is working!

As of this morning, TVoP is #18 in Sword and Sorcery Hot New Releases, #23 in Epic Fantasy Hot New Releases, and #78 on the Amazon Best Sellers list for Sword and Sorcery.

This makes me very happy.

Also, I’ve finished the polishing edit. I just want to revisit a couple of chapters that required a little more than average revision and then I can upload the final file. So everything will be done well before Amazon’s deadline.

Then I can get back to work on the first draft of Book 3, BEYOND THE PROPHECY.

Also, the Clean Indie Reads Holiday Sale is still going on. THE SHAMAN’S CURSE is only $0.99 thru December 7th.

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