writing | Meredith Mansfield, Author

Posts Tagged ‘writing’

Things Are Coming Together

Posted in writing, tagged conflict, e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, inspiration, sequels, series, writing on March 4, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I’m a little more than three-quarters of the way through the first draft of Beyond the Prophecy, the third book in the Dual Magics series. I’m at a point where I’m making a lot of notes of things that need to be fixed in the revisions.

This is the first book in the series in which things are moving on two fronts. Not that I haven’t occasionally cut away from the main character to show what was going on somewhere else. But now it’s not something that’s going to impact him later. Now, while he valiantly tries to put a lid on things over hear, they’re boiling over somewhere else. And, being only human (if a magical one), he can still only be in one place at a time.

The thing was, I didn’t have a good way to connect what’s going on in one place with the issues in the other–at least until everything blows up in the fourth (and last) book. That is–until yesterday, when the solution occurred to me.

I also had a couple of characters who’d played a part in the second book, The Voice of Prophecy,

who had virtually disappeared in this book. I wanted to at least have them show themselves, since they’ll have roles in the fourth book.

And the plan came together. One of those characters is the perfect link between at least part of what’s happening away from the main city and what’s going on in the city.

I’ve backed up to add a chapter. That’s not something I usually allow myself to do in a first draft, but I’m making an exception this time.

Read Full Post »

Graphic Design and Book Covers

Posted in writing, tagged Cover Art, e-publishing, fantasy, Learning, marketing, research, sequels, series, writing, Young Adult on March 1, 2015| 2 Comments »

I’ve been reading–admittedly slowly because it’s just not as much fun as reading fiction–a graphic design book, trying to improve my understanding of what I’m doing when I design a book cover. I actually looked for a course at my local community college, but they didn’t have one. Graphic Arts, yes, but not Graphic Design, specifically.

I think typography will likely be an area where I need to get into more depth. I have a tendency to just pick a standard font and go with it.

This is particularly apropos because I’m trying to get a start on two covers right now. The one for BEYOND THE PROPHECY, the third book in the Dual Magics series. And one for DAUGHTER OF THE DISGRACED KING, a young adult fantasy romance that I wrote over a year ago.

I actually have the concept for BEYOND THE PROPHECY pretty well in hand. Not that it will hurt to have a better understanding of the principals of design. But the background theme–blue and red on a dark background–is already well established. The backgrounds advance from lightning, to a veritable storm of lightning, to smoke, and finally to flames. The only thing I really need to choose for those covers is the foreground image. For BEYOND THE PROPHECY it will be a white eagle (or as close as I can get, which may be a gyrfalcon. There aren’t very many images of truly white eagles.) That might, or might not, give you an idea of what happens in the story.

DAUGHTER OF THE DISGRACED KING is proving more difficult. I think I may finally have a concept. Something I may try out on a couple of Facebook groups I belong to, to see how it flies. That’s very helpful, too.

Indie authors have to wear a lot of hats.

Read Full Post »

Evolving Ideas

Posted in writing, tagged characters, e-publishing, fantasy, inspiration, sequels, series, synopsis, world building, writing on February 25, 2015| Leave a Comment »

So, that series guide I was thinking about in my last post. It probably won’t be something to put in a future newsletter after all. It might just be right here on this blog, with links added in the ebooks.

There’s already a good deal of information about the world of the Dual Magics series right here under the Worlds tab. Now, that could definitely use a bit of reorganization.

Right now, there’s a lot of the world building information about each of the different cultural groups in the story and a map. And more could be added to it.

Some of that would be new information, like a version of those synopses that have been bothering me, so that anyone who wanted to update themselves on the major events of the previous books could find that information here. Maybe even a brief history of how the Dual Magics world got to be the way it is at the beginning of the series answering questions like:

Why do the Dardani fear magic so much?
Are the Valson and the Fasallon really related and why did they separate?
And, for that matter, where did they come from and why did they leave?

Now, I’m still thinking of writing some prequel stories–possibly novellas–about that history. But . . . well, we’ll see.

And everything could be livened up with some images that show what I was thinking about when I wrote that part. Like, for example, this photo which is what I think Thekila looks like.

© Aksakalko | Dreamstime.com - Portrait Of Young Beautiful Red-haired Woman Photo

I’m liking this idea very much. Stay tuned.

Read Full Post »

Series Guide

Posted in writing, tagged characters, e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, inspiration, marketing, sequels, series, world building, writing on February 22, 2015| Leave a Comment »

This is a fun idea brought to my attention by fellow writer Donna K. Weaver, based on something she’d seen another author do recently.

Create a little guide, probably .pdf, of the series. It could include extra materials on the world building and history along with images of things that were part of my inspiration. Maybe other fun things, as well, like deleted scenes.

It seems to me that a newsletter would be almost a necessity to distribute something like this. That’s something I keep saying I’m going to do and somehow never get around to. Maybe this will be the kick in the pants I need.

At any rate, I’ve had some fun this drizzly morning looking up and collecting images that reflect what I see when I’m writing these stories. Like this one:

© Prometeus | Dreamstime.com - Aborigine Photo

That’s a pretty good image of my concept of the shaman from THE SHAMAN’S CURSE. Right down to the raven mask. (But less the heavy eye make up.) So good, that for a while it was a contender for the cover. Might have made it, too–if I’d been able to figure out what I could do with the other covers to unify the series.

That’s not as much of a sidetrack to working on the first draft of BEYOND THE PROPHECY as it might seem. This kind of inspiration can also help to recharge the creative batteries. I may have to do some more browsing later.

Read Full Post »

Building Toward the Climax

Posted in writing, tagged e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, revisions, sequels, series, writing on February 18, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Now that I can see the remainder of BEYOND THE PROPHECY so clearly, I’m getting impatient to write the climax. I think it’s going to be good. And take a couple of (hopefully) unexpected twists. And, of course, take the main character’s inner journey further, too. His character arc may sometimes be subtle, but he has a long way to go to complete it in the fourth book and last book of the Dual Magics series.

However, as a discovery writer, I find I really need to write (mostly) in order. I can’t skip around the way some writers do. Oh, I’ll sketch out a future scene if I, say, wake up with it in my head. But even then, I usually find that it changes significantly–or maybe doesn’t happen at all–by the time I get to it.

So, now what I have to do is channel that excitement about the climax into these next few chapters that will get me there.

Read Full Post »

Guessing the Number of Chapters Is Dangerous

Posted in writing, tagged e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, sequels, series, writing on February 15, 2015| 2 Comments »

Remember Wednesday when I gave a rough estimate of 58 chapters in BEYOND THE PROPHECY? Well, I decided to rough out what I thought those chapters might be. (I won’t call it an outline, because I don’t do those.) It came out to 46 in the first draft.

That may or may not be accurate. It’s perfectly possible that I’ll discover some events that require more than one chapter. And I’m pretty sure that I’ll be adding at least a couple of chapters in the first round of revisions. (That’s not particularly unusual, by the way.) But, yeah, I don’t think it’s going to be 58 chapters.

That means I might finish this first draft in as little as a month. It might take a bit longer than that, though, because there are at least three fight scenes in the last part and they do take more planning and a little longer to write.

So, I’m definitely making progress and getting more confident with the idea of a September/October release. Though a lot could still happen to change that.

Read Full Post »

Promotion Wrap Up

Posted in writing, tagged e-publishing, fantasy, Learning, marketing, sequels, series, writing on February 8, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Okay, my $0.99 promotion for THE VOICE OF PROPHECY finished on Friday. The results were mixed.

Now I should say that I didn’t have enormously high expectations to begin with. I knew I was going with a relatively new site. (That’s why it was free, after all.) Also, part of it was my fault. My first tweet of the promotion had the purchase url wrong. Can’t expect people to buy something if they can’t find it, now can you?

Now, there are two things I hope for from a promotion.

Enough sales to pay for itself
Most importantly, more people aware of the book. This is the single hardest thing for an indie author.

I don’t have any way of assessing the second. I suppose time will tell. For the first, well since the ad didn’t actually cost me anything directly, the only costs to recoup would be the decreased royalty from the price drop. I would have needed approximately three times as many sales as normal to offset the drop. That didn’t happen. Well, I’ll qualify that. I did break even in the UK, but not on Amazon.com.

My sales are still down a bit, but that’s to be expected following a sale. Hopefully they’ll rebound quickly.

So, what did I learn?

I probably made another mistake in promoting the second book in the series, even though it’s the new release (and this was a new-release promotion). It probably would have done more good to promote the first book–or to promote both together. I’ll try that next time.

Will I use SciFiFantasyFreak again?

Yes. Of all the promotion sites out there (that I’ve found so far) it’s the one that aims right at my target audience. The bigger and better-established sites are all more general, though the best of them do at least allow subscribers to choose their genres of interest instead of being bombarded with a lot of titles they’ll never buy. (Hint: There is no point in marketing a spy thriller to me. If I’m in the right mood, I might invest a couple of hours in the movie–for free on tv–but I’m not going to buy the book.) And I do think that as their subscriber list grows SciFiFantasyFreak will only get better.

Next time, though, I will try harder to combine that promotion with one of those other sites. That’s something I definitely haven’t mastered yet.

I subscribe to several of these bargain e-book sites. (Sometimes, I even buy something that’s advertised. Mostly, I consider it market research.) I often see books that turn up on more than one of the sites on the same day or within a day of each other. I don’t know how those authors manage that level of organization–while working, writing the next book, and trying to make at least a swipe at all the things that need to be done around this house. I need to figure that out.

Read Full Post »

Promotion

Posted in writing, tagged e-publishing, fantasy, Learning, marketing, sequels, series, writing on February 4, 2015| Leave a Comment »

So, I’m nervous right now. I’ve got a promotion going this week. (It started yesterday afternoon and runs through Friday.) It’s a $0.99 Kindle Countdown deal on The Voice of Prophecy.

The promotion is on SciFiFantasyFreak. Not one of the big promotion sites, but at least hopefully targeted to my main audience. (And within my price range.)

I haven’t done a lot of promotion for my books. Not very good at it, though I know I need to learn to be. And my record for what I have done is kind of spotty. Some have worked pretty well. Some have fallen flat and actually hurt sales. Here’s hoping this falls in the first category. I’ll let you know on Sunday.

Any help getting the word out would be greatly appreciated.

Writing is the fun part, but people have to be able to find the stories, too.

Read Full Post »

Characters Going Separate Ways

Posted in writing, tagged characters, e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, sequels, series, writing on February 1, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I’ve now reached a point in BEYOND THE PROPHECY where my characters are moving in different directions and I have to keep the story moving in three (maybe four) different places.

There was some of this in THE SHAMAN’S CURSE, basically before the characters came together in the first place.

But, once I got them together they basically stayed that way in THE VOICE OF PROPHECY.

Now, about half-way through BEYOND THE PROPHECY, they’re splitting up again. Not as in breaking up the team–or the couples. Just, events require them to be in different places, whether they like it or not (most of them don’t). Things are beginning to heat up toward the big confrontation in book 4 and they just can’t cover all the bases if they stay together.

I admit, it’s more complicated balancing the story between characters this way and not letting the pace get bogged down. Things are going to be a lot more exciting in one area than the others, but what happens elsewhere matters to the whole plot, too. I have to try to balance that so readers aren’t tempted to just skip over chapters to get back to the action. (I know I’ve felt that way in some books.)

Still, there are parts of the upcoming plot I’m excited to get to. There’s going to be some fun stuff ahead.

Read Full Post »

You Never Know What You’ll Find

Posted in writing, tagged characters, e-publishing, fantasy, first drafts, Learning, Real Life, sequels, series, writing on January 28, 2015| Leave a Comment »

In real life, one of my current projects is to organize that room. Just about every house has one. The room that doesn’t get used very often (maybe it’s a guest room) and so ends up being the place where you put anything you can’t find another place for–or things you just don’t want to week out, yet. In my case, it’s variously referred to as the back bedroom or the closet room. Somehow, no matter how many times I’ve tried to organize it, it always ends up looking like some giant has stirred it with a stick. I think there’s a poltergeist at work.

There are literally corners in that room I haven’t been able to get to for years. Not without a lot of work, anyway. I pulled a lot of stuff out of that room when I designated a portion of my new office space for crafts. Made sense to organize and store most of the craft supplies in one of the closets. That should make it easier to organize what’s left. Somehow, it seems to have had the opposite effect.

The thing is, you never quite know what you’re going to turn up when you start poking into corners like that. Among the things that have turned up are very early versions of some stories that I later rewrote. (Must remember to shred those at some point. The writing is truly dreadful.) And an abandoned writing journal.

I knew that the characters and at least some of the events of the Dual Magics series had been kicking around in my head for a while. Now I know just how long a while. 1987. Yikes. Back then, I used to write long hand in spiral notebooks.

Of course, it’s not quite the same story now that it was then. It’s much better and richer than that early version.

After I abandoned the book as a writing journal, I apparently used it to write down impressions on at least one vacation. The last entry is: