Second Sight by Amanda Quick, who is really Jayne Ann Krentz, is the first novel in the Arcane Society series that is crossing over all of Krentz’s pseudonyms: contemporary, historical and science-fiction. Dealing with people of psychical powers it lends itself to some creative ideas. In Second Sight we meet Venetia Milton and Gabriel Jones. The characters are normal personage you would expect to find in her novels; headstrong female and brooding male. I wasn’t really propelled to know about either one. The plot advance at a nice even pace. If you are looking for a simple nightly read then this is the book for you. There are some interesting parts and the book is well written, after all Krentz knows how to tell a story. But for me this isn’t one that inspires multiple readings.
I haven’t actually been reading the series in order, they seem to be stand alone books as well as part of an over all series. There are some that piggy back each and there are some details that are built upon one another. I still think you can get away with out being totally hooked order.
Rating: 6 out of 10
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Tags: Amanda Quick, Arcane Society
Just got finished reading the first book in the The Cronus Chronicles series by Anne Ursu. One of the reasons I love working at a library is because you are instantly surrounded by free books, the key word being free. You can take as many as you want home and not have to worry about if you can afford them or not. At this moment I have over 30 books checked out and since starting in mid December I have read over that many. Belatedly I remembered that I had thought to do book reviews on the books I read. I would like to go back and do the ones I have read before now but that’s some number of books.
At any event The Shadow Theives by Anne Ursu is a young adult book that I have enjoyed reading. It takes place in an American town, part of London and the Underworld. It’s a story about Charlotte Mielswetski (Meal-wet-ski) and her biracial cousin (at least I think he’s biracial his father is white and his mother is black but Ursu refers to him as black…so don’t know really) london born cousin Zachery Miller. Charlotte seems like a normal teen besides the fact that she has no inclination to improve her bad attitude, trying harder at anything or meeting new people. And her cousin is normal as well besides the unexplained illness all his freinds and the kids at his school and summer club have come down with, but he seems okay. So nothing should be thought of when Zachary comes to live with Charlotte and then the kids around her start getting sick. She can’t think about that right now she has to take care of the new kitten she just found.
Reading this novel I found myself smiling and laughing at loud often. My favorite part was when we are introduced to Cheron in the passage,
“Everyone knows he has the worst jon in the Underworld. He spends his days rowing back and forth along the Styx, listening to the Dead freak out because they’re Dead and they had so much to live for blah, blah, blah, and where in the heck are the pearly Gates anway?”
There’s adventure, action and a little bit of magic. Mrs. Ursu has a unique and fun style of drawing the reader into her story and ultimatley her mind. If you are looking for a story that’s garunteed to make you question everything you know about Greek mythology, or confirmation that some teachers are really weirder than they semm, or that guy down the street named Phil is really at the heart of something naferious, then by all means pick this one up at your local library.
-J.L.
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Tags: Anne Ursu
A New Year: Update and Such
So another year has came and gone and I feel so out of touch. Like seriously I know I did stuff in 2008 but I don’t remember it at all. I mean at all. So I have to some good news…I finished DYTCiYC. Yeah I know took long enough but look it’s done. Why isn’t it posted? Well I sort of broke my computer for semi-good. Well I didn’t break it really, it broke itself. The powerbox blew and to replace it would be the same as buying a new computer. So I have save up for it.
So the only computer I have access to is at my job at the library which means I don’t have the time to sit and retype an handwritten manuscript. Because I have a one shot to type as well. *sigh*
But when I do have the time and the resources to do such a thing I will have lots of things to share with you. I hope to get the writing series completed to put on here as well.
It’s been so long since I have had to handwrite a manuscript for a story that it takes everything out of me, and my wrists are sooooo sore afterwards. But I will have two copies of a story now so that’s worth it. I might continue to do that after I get the new computer.
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Tags: Computer, Handwriting
Is Anyone Still Out There?
So a three month hiatus…so didn’t mean to do that. But I got sidetracked and lost interest for a time being in the writing series. Not really going to say sorry about that, I mean these things happen. Until I can justify this little writing habit of mine with some income, I’m gonna have to sometimes set it aside and focus on reality. Man I hate to do that but you gotta do what you gotta do, right?
Does this mean I’m back for now, I can’t really say yes or no to that right now. Just felt like you guys deserve some kind of answer to where the heck is Juni Lyn. Well I’m here alive and semi kicking it.
I’ve taken about a three week hiatus from writing and beta reading too. I know why the writing hiatus has come about and I’ll get to that later. But the beta reading, well that’s explainable by I was spending to much time on other people writing that I wasn’t focusing on mines. I wasn’t finding the time to work on my own stories, and that’s not fair to me or to you guys. When I signed up to beta read I didn’t think I would get the response I was getting, at least five or so emails a day from aspiring writers asking for help. Needless to say that was getting overwhelming. I plan on finishing those who I’ve started and then take a mini break from that. If you haven’t received an email from me and I originally said I would beta read for you, please send me another email. I’ve been trying to get a hold to everyone but there is a chance I’ve skipped over you by accident. I finally got on today and checked my email…over 300 emails and more than half from beta reading hopefuls.
Now to the writing, well here’s the thing. I was feeling pressure somewhat to make the story something it wasn’t meant to be. A longer story. HA! I know seems weird but tis true. I only meant DYTCiYC to be a short light fun filled read, but was quickly becoming another Jade. And I found myself struggling to come up with scenes to prolong the story to make my readers happy. And although I enjoy doing that, I felt like I was over doing it and it was hurting my work. So I had to take a step back reorganize myself and see what it was I wanted the story to go. It was always destined to be a short story and honestly there’s not much there to make it more than that.
So I hope to get back on track with regular updates but I can’t promise anything.
And so there you have it, hope you guys still understand and will continue to be patient with me.
Until Later,
Filed under: Short Stories, The Readers, Updates, Writing Series | 2 Comments
Tags: Beta Reading, DYTCiYC, Hiatus, Jade
One Big Update
I know it’s been a while since I written an update about what’s been happening. No excuses just going to go into the update.
So since the last update which was back in March, not much has happen.
I still thinking about what to do with the site. I want to keep it, since I put a lot of work into it. But between the blog and fiction press I don’t have a direct need for it.
And Fictionpress as been very good to me, since I came back in the begining of March my stats have seen an steady increase. From just a little bit over 2,000 profile hits in the beginning of March I have a little over 5,000 hits as of today. 29 people have placed me on their favorite authors list and 14 people have me on their author’s alert list. Thanks to all those people. I love the support you guys are giving me.
Despite it’s unsure start Markus is seeing alot of action and favs. But Jade is still number one with 4,284 views and 17 favorites.
At the end of the writing challenge I had a grand total of 10,989 words. A Season of change saw great support, in the first two days of me posting the whole story it saw 1,887 views, and as of today it’s seen 3148 and five favs.
I started the choosen short story, Do You Take Cream in Your Coffee? With 35 more views than Passing Time, it was the clear winner. So I’ve been steadly updating that story. I’m up to chapter Four. For those of you who don’t know DYTCiYC is another interracial story (BW/WM). This time centered around Bianca and Evan, a slightly younger couple than Jade and Nick.
On top of that I’ve been working with other writers thanks to the Beta Reading services. The opportunity has given me more insight to things to include in the writing series. Which I wanted to let you all know I will be doing an updated version post on that sometime soon. With the added topics and a more organized plan of events.
The inspiration muse as been kind to me I’ve come up with some new ideas for stories and one shots. Which is always a blessing to know that the ideas are still coming.
I’ve started the process of writing draft two of The Halloween Story, and I’m liking it way better. As you continue to write your style in writing becomes more defined. And I’ve been sited to have a sassy sexy style of writing. And I for one I’m happy with that. So I’m doing my best to infuse that sense of style into this story. Sense it was started over a year ago and I’ve written so much since then.
The last thing to report is that I’ve started a collaboration project with a fellow friend, called the Glass Inkwell Project. I’ll give you more details at another time.
That’s it for now. I told you one big update. I’ll try not to let the time pass in between me doing another one.
Filed under: Short Stories, Updates, Website Related, Writing Challenges, Writing Series | Leave a Comment
Tags: Beta Reading, DYTCiYC, Glass Inkwell, Halloween Party, Writer Collab
Originally written on Tuesday, April 08, 2008
This is the seventh post in the Writing Series. To learn more about the series see this post.
Let’s do a quick review shall we? Over the last seven posts in the series we have not only lead a confrontation against Cliché Characters and implemented a full scale attack against Writer’s Block, but we’ve tackled outlining and plot development. So what’s next? It’s time to address settings and their development. You have your characters and you have your plot, now you just need to know when and where your story is going to take place. But that’s not all there is to setting development, but we’ll get to that later.
The Basics of World Building
The basics of world building are just the answers to simple questions, When and Where. To build up a believable setting you should start with these questions. And as always the more details you start with, the better.
One of the first steps you should take when building your world is simple, are you on Earth or not. Is this place an Alternate Earth (AE) world or is it a Not Earth at All (NEaA) world? Figuring these answers out now will aid you in the steps to come.
When does your story take place? Past, Present, or Future. If it’s in the past, then it’s label historical and that in itself comes with challenges. If you choose to do a historical fiction, here are some general rules. Going back to the first step, are you dealing with Earth, Alternate Earth, or Not Earth at All. If you are dealing with Earth’s past, you already have a plan to follow. Do your research. Know when your civilization happened, or could have happen. If you are going to have a race that is more advance technologically then we are today in the year 1020 CE, then you should have a plan to explain what happen to them since we obviously lost their knowledge somewhere along the lines. By most historian standards, civilization happens when there is writing and a system of counting, and the first signs of a true civilization are the Egyptians. However, there is nothing to say you can’t create a lost civilization. Pay attention to details when dealing with historical fictions. Clothes, language, transportation, beliefs, all need to be handled. A 12th century peasant wouldn’t be wearing a knitted skirt because the technique of knitting was learned until the 14th century. It might seem like random facts but the details make your story believable.
Once you’ve settled the answers to When and Where, then you can move on to Whom and How, you need to think about the inhabitants of your world. Are there different human races on the planet, are there human races on the planet at all. What about non-human, elves, dwarves, aliens? How long have the inhabitants been here, did they evolve there or migrate from another place? How big is the population of the world and the country your story takes place, the town/village? Does this planet run on magic or science? If it’s magic, then it’s a fantasy based story. Where does magic come from, the gods, personal willpower, the life force of the person (As with Harry and the other witches and warlocks, they were born magical it’s just how it is.) If it’s science then science fiction is your home. How technologically advance is the population, is everyone on the same playing field? If not why not? What purpose does technology have in the world, who developed the technology? Is there someone out there opposing this technology?
If you have chosen to do an AE world, then the inhabitants might include non human races, if that’s the case what kind are they? Are they open about the presences to everyone, how many are there and what areas do they occupy. How similar is this world to Earth, are their differences in history and culture? What are the similarities? Maybe your story has a definitive point in history that causes it to split from ours, maybe China was really the first civilization to discover America and that caused America’s future to change drastically. If you chose to do a NEaA world, then you need to go into physically building your planet and its structure. The size of the planet, the atmosphere make-up, does it have a sun and a moon? Landmass makeup and arrangement. Season patterns and such.
**Please note that by choosing one of these types of world, you are in for a lot of creative thinking, while having your story based on Earth you are in for some heavy research. The work will end up about the same in order to make the story believable.
Once you have a handle on the basics of your world you can start delving into the details of your world. Starting with the physical and historical features of your setting. Physical and historical features of any story be it an Earth based story, AE based story, or even a NEaA story, have two things that are generally the first steps one takes in getting started and that is where geographically does your story take place. How much ground is covered in the story, how will the characters travel this ground? What does this landmass look like, is it a snow covered mountain range, a sweltering tropical rain forest, or a deathly dry desert oasis? Moving on to the historical features you’ll handle the specific of your magical element or the technological one. Also the country that your story takes place in, its background history should be hammered out.
People are part of the Setting too!
Setting isn’t just geography. A complete and believable writer has taken in to account the type of people that will not only be the supporting class but the extras. For those who are taking on the challenge of writing a AE story or NEaA story, how you deal with the people in your story and their customs can break or make your story. You should think about and handle grand themes like customs, ethics and religions, and even language to small mundane things like foods eaten, arts and entertainment, and architecture. Dealing with the social organization is a must too, the government set up, foreign relations, the crime and legal system, and even how they wage war and the weapons used.
Public life of your characters will most defiantly come up in your writing so dealing with it now can save you hours of writer’s block when you need an extra tie in scene. As well as their daily life, should be handling in the setting development stage. The general fashion and dress of the characters in your story should be handled as well as manners that are accepted and those that aren’t. And figuring out their diet, which is different than deciding what type of food they eat. What is considered everyday food for your characters, what are some holiday only foods? How often do they eat? The last few things you might hammer out in the planning stage are the calendar set up and the education system. For those of you with Earth based stories, all this just should come from research and personal experiences.
Here’s a link to a website I like to use that has a list of questions to help me whenever I think I’ve done all the planning I need to do. It helps me check to see if I have missed an important detail somewhere in the planning stage.
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Tags: Setting Development
This is the sixth post in the Writing Series. To learn more about the series see this post.
Sometimes things hit me well after they should have. I’ve talked about characters and outlining your story, and I’ve even gone over writer’s block, but I haven’t discussed plots. You have to have a plot to a story before you can decide what your characters are going to be like and way before you start outlining a story, how else will you know what you should be outlining? So my bad, but I’ll correct the mistake now and push this article post up.
First things first a definition of what a plot is, this one is relatively simple, it’s the plan of a story or the main point of said story. Every story has a plot, but not every plot is worth a story. The goal of this article is to help you realize not only what a solid plot is but also what a good and unique plot is. Creating a unique plot is easier said than done, but just like combating cliché characters, it can be done.
Unique Plots
As I’ve said before, everyone has to understand that in this day and age almost every type of idea has been done to some extent. If you don’t believe me, think about all the movies you’ve seen in the last five years. I bet you five bucks that the ones you can think of all have similar plots. And the same can be said about the stories you’ve read. As you know I’m a member of Fictionpress, and on random some of the stories that I can come across in one sitting usually have the same problem. They all have similar plots. Focusing on just romance, since I am a romance writer, I usually find stories that have the teen girl who isn’t popular at school but still manages to hook the popular boy. This is what I like to call the Cinderella Plot Stories, everyone knows that bedtime story, poor abused girl gets a wish from her fairy godmother and poof she’s awesome and gets to go to the ball. She ends up catching the Prince’s eye and he won’t stop until he has her. Usually these stories can be identified by their clichéd characters, the unpopular girls is most often a bookworm and a smart mouth and the popular boy is most likely a jerk in public but he’s really a sweetheart in private. There’s even a mirror plot to these, where the man is unpopular and the girl still falls for him, I call them Malerella Plot Stories. You also have the Knight in Shining Armor Plot Stories, Girl Kicking Ass Plot Stories, Emotastic Plot Stories (these include stories where one of the characters is a moody loner, or the character has had major tragedy in their young lives, and the generally depressing stories of teen angst.). Not to mention the Finding Love with Best friend Plot Stories, and Caterpillar turning into Butterfly/ Rising Phoenix Plot (stories including a main character going through some form of change be it physical or emotional). I know someone is out there saying why she picking on teen based stories. I’m not, honest, because these plots show up the most in college aged and up writings and not just romance novels. The problem is that no matter what type of story you find and can think up, you can usually place it in one of these groups.
So how can you create a unique plot? Simple know that you are going to fall into one of these groups, so from the outset don’t try to over think it. If you do that, then you get to complicated and the story is doomed to fail. If you have an overly complicated story no one is going to be able to follow it, and thus you alienate your readers, the very people who you should be thinking of (in some part) when you write. Focus on one plot, I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve read over the last month, where there were several sub plots happening in one story. Some stories need it, but if they are all half thought out stories then you’ve done nothing more than confused me. If you focus in on one plot, you are more likely to develop that plot fully. Don’t be afraid to mix and match from the groups listed above. If you do that don’t do it in the normal way, have a Malerella and Fall in Love with Best Friend Plot Story or a Caterpillar turning into Butterfly and Girl Kicking Ass Plot story. And to help it even more stay away from clichéd stories, work on your character developments as well.
If you really want to do a story from one of the groups then try basing it on personal experiences, everyone has personal experiences that are different from every in the world. Don’t be afraid to tap into that.
Solid Plots
You’ve brainstormed for days (or maybe hours) and you’ve come up with one unique plot, now what? Before you start outlining and ultimately writing your story, take the time to develop the plot so that it’s solid and you know what it is. I know I’ve said this before but I like to make plot summaries. What this entails is that I summarize the whole story in one to two pages. I always limit myself to no more than two pages. This forces me to really summarize it, not start writing the start. If you were around when I was doing the poll for Which Short Story Should I Start Next, you would have seen edited summaries for the three short stories. I just glance over the main points of the story, leaving out as much details as I can. But it reads like a summary, it’s not a collection of topic sentences that kind of relate. I do it this way so I can come back, look at it, and know what I was thinking. In truth, I use a two step system, but you can skip the first part, which is writing down the topic sentences like a list. For example, Girl(1) goes to party, Girl(1) meets Guy(1) at said party, Guy(1) hits on Girl(1), Girl(1) goes home with Guy(1), Guy(1) meets Girl(2), Girl(2) falls for Guy(1), etc. Then once I’ve gotten that part done I go into the full summary part. I keep both parts for future reference. Like I said you don’t have to do the first part, but skipping both parts is hazardous to your writing. Doing the summaries help me find holes in my plots. If I can’t write the summary completely then I know at some point something isn’t going to work when I start writing the story. Since I’ve been doing this two part system I’ve yet to come to a standstill in my writings. I didn’t use this system for any of my Big Three, which is why I think I’ve come to so many blocks on them. And this also explains, in my opinion why there are so many missing scenes in Jade. Now that there is only the Big Two left and I’m not doing updates, I can go back and work on the plots.
How will you know if you have a solid plot? If you can write the summary without stopping because you don’t know what happens next, then you’ve got a solid plot. Another test is to let someone read it and see how he or she reacts. If they come up with questions about the plot, as if something doesn’t makes sense then take another look at it. HOWEVER, you aren’t changing you plot to suit them; you are just filling in holes. Make sure you (and them) understand this. You’re not asking if they like it but if it makes sense and they can follow the story. If you take another look, fix it to the point that you like and they still have questions, make sure it’s not in the details that they are questioning. Because you’re leaving out a lot of details because these can change as you start planning and writing, but the plot should (most likely) stay the same.
In summary, take the time to do your research and brainstorming to come up with a unique plot. If you still want to go with something that’s been done to death, go for it. As I always say, it’s your story, if you think you can give a new life to an old favorite, well then by all means go for it. I myself have many clichéd plots, but my goal is to put some sort of unconventional twist to it. After coming up with your unique plot, hammer out the details (sort of speak) so that you have the most solid plot you can get before delving into the actual story. Whether you use my preferred two-step system or split the system into two separate parts and using only one, you’re bound to be happy come the next steps, Character Development.
Filed under: Writing Process, Writing Series | 3 Comments
Tags: My Thoughts, Plots
Writing Challange: Day Three
And it’s official I’m done. I just completed the short story A Season of Change. 10,989 was the total word count at the end of it all. I posted the results on FP. I don’t know what I’m going to do for the extra day I have of the challenge. I know one thing I’m going to bed now…
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Tags: aSoC, Easter 2008 Writing Challenge
Writing Challange: Day Two
So checking in on the writing challenge and I’m glad to report I’ve past the 6,000 mark.
6,607.
AND I’m still not done. The story has become more complicated than I first imagined. That’s what I get for not really planning it out. I wrote again for five hours, but I took a break in between to do some beta reading meetings. I hope to have the thing done by tomorrow.
That’s all for tonight.
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Tags: aSoC, Easter 2008 Writing Challenge
Feeding The Need To Write 