Tag Archives: About writing

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Valar Morghulis : On killing your characters

Hello gentle reader,

for this second ROW80 check-in, I thought I would tackle the issue of killing characters in novels. Let’s say you’ve created a number of interesting and believable characters in your WIP. Is killing off one or all of them going to help or harm your novel?

Over the past few months I have had to consider this question for two reasons:

–          one of the main characters in my epic fantasy novel The Last Queen dies at the end of the book and some of my beta readers have protested against such a death.

–          I have come across several serial stories where killing off characters was an over-used writing device and it made me wonder when killing your characters actually damages your story rather than makes it go forward.

I am not talking here about the horror genre, where killing off all the characters one by one is an expected writing device. I am talking about the other genres, especially Fantasy and Historical Fiction.

The first example of a story where no one is safe is A Song of Ice and Fire by G.R.R. Martin. One of the catch phrase used in this series of books is actually “Valar Morghulis”, which can be translated as “all men must die”. In the books (as well as in the TV show Game of Thrones that is aired on HBO since 2011), a great number of the major characters die, often brutally and unexpectedly.

The second example I have come across recently is the Starz TV show Spartacus, created by Steven S. DeKnight and Robert Tapert. In this historical drama, the writers’ motto is “Kill Them All”, which translates into the death of almost every single character, save for Spartacus himself.

So I get why killing off characters can be a useful writing device. When the reader has become invested in sympathetic characters, it is always a great emotional shock to see those beloved characters die, especially if those deaths are paired with acts of bravery and/or selflessness. For the writer, the death of a character can also be a great way to move the plot along. For example, at the beginning of the second season of Supernatural (a CW TV show), the death of the heroes’ father was a great way to get the story forward. In the Harry Potter series, the deaths of Sirius Black (in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) and Albus Dumbledore (in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) were impressive plot devices that made the young characters grow up and move forward despite their grief.

What I am questioning here, however, is the over-use of the device. In a way, G.R.R. Martin and the writers of Spartacus have painted themselves into a corner, because their readers/viewers now know that they shouldn’t invest too much in characters that are going to die anyway. Also the element of surprise is gone: when you get to Book 5 of A Song of Ice and Fire, you basically expect everyone to die. In this case, the reader/viewer feels cheated because instead of being presented with a great plot and believable tragic events, he is faced with yet another character’s death that doesn’t stir any emotion in him and harms the plot instead of moving it forward.

So what do you think? Do you read or write stories in which everybody dies?

Before wrapping up this post, a few words about my ROW80 goals:

1-      Write everyday: 5/7 days. This week I wrote every day except for Thursday and Friday when my day job took over my life.

2-      Self-edit The Last Queen: not exactly done. I have actually added a few scenes to the novel instead of editing it down. Argh.

3-      Continue writing the first draft of The Cursed King: done, but only a few hundred words.

Here is the Linky for the other ROW80 participants. How have you been doing?

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The Lucky 7 Meme

This week I was tagged in the Lucky 7 meme by the lovely Belle DiMonté.

Here are the rules:

1) Go to page 7 or 77 from your current WIP (work in progress)

2) Go to line 7

3) Copy down the next 7 lines–sentences or paragraphs–and post them as they’re written. No cheating!

4) Tag 7 authors and let them know

So here is an excerpt from The Last Queen, which I am currently editing:

She pushed a cup toward him and raised her own.

“To the God of Light!”

Then she drank her wine. Elian didn’t even move to take his cup. In his experience, if you kept very still and very quiet for a long time, people just gave up on trying to get anything out of you. But the girl wasn’t giving up so easily.

She poured herself more wine and went on.

“Like, for example, have you seen real Vampires in your life? I’m sure you have!”

And now the next 7 tagged writers are…

Raewyn Hewitt

Sydney Aaliyah

Juliana Haygert

Yesenia Vargas

Amanda Fanger 

Morgan Hyde

Rebecca Berto

Thanks to Belle for tagging me !

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A Round of Words in 80 Days – Round 3 – Check-in #1

Hello gentle reader,

My blog is four months old today! And I am very close to have 100 followers, how exciting is that?! Thanks to everyone who has supported me and this blog in the past few months. You’ve made this blogging endeavour worth it…

So it is now July and I have decided to join the awesome writing challenge that is A Round of Words in 80 Days (aka ROW80) for the second time. Created by Kait Nolan, it is “the writing challenge that knows you have a life”, or “the challenge that champions the marriage of writing and real life.” Unlike NaNoWriMo which runs for only a month, each ROW80 round runs for 80 days and the participating writers have to set themselves writing goals for that time. Each Wednesday and Sunday, we check in and let the others know how we are doing. The idea is to form writing habits that writers will hopefully continue once the challenge is over.

Thus after my JuNoWriMo debacle (during which I have learned that one cannot spend an average of 9.1 hours per day at work AND write a 50.000 words novel), I am back to doing a writing challenge that will actually fit into my crazy daily schedule.

So here are my goals for this round:

1-      Write everyday

2-      Self-edit The Last Queen

This was one of my goals for the last round and I did complete it, however since then I have heard Back from a few beta readers/agents and I have some new editing to do.

3-      Continue writing the first draft of The Cursed King

This is the second book in my DARKLANDS epic fantasy trilogy (more info here) and I really want to finish a first draft during this round.

Round Three starts on Monday, July 2nd and will end on Thursday, September 20th.

If you would like to join in this writing challenge and become a part of the ROW80 community, here are the rules:

  1. Post a goals post in which you lay out your goals for this round.
  2. Post a check-in post every Wednesday and Sunday, in which you share your progress with the other ROW80 participants.
  3. Comment on other participants’ check-in posts.

Here is the Linky for the other participants’ posts. What are your ROW80 goals for this round?

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The Writer In You Blog Hop – 3

The Writer In You is a blog hop hosted by Katie at The Fiction Diaries. In her own words, “this is a blog hop for all aspiring writers out there. It is a chance to meet other writers and share tips, writing, and experiences, all while gaining new followers for your lovely blog…” Every Saturday, Katie asks a question that we have to answer.

This week’s question is: What is your favorite classic novel and is there anything in particular you take from it that you hope to see in your own writing?

My favourite classic novel is undoubtedly Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. Published in 1847, this book is considered a masterpiece of English literature. It is famous for its doomed love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, which is indeed the most passionate and fascinating love story I have ever read.

But what I find incredibly inspiring in this novel is how DARING it is. Not only does the novel have a complex narrative structure (hello multiple narrators and mise en abyme) and it depicts an amazing setting, but it also includes incredibly violent scenes, bold topics and dialogues in Yorshire dialect.

Wuthering Heights’ writing is actually so bold and original that it has often been suggested that Emily Brontë, a shy clergyman’s daughter who lived in the middle of nowhere, couldn’t possibly have written such a book. Yet she did. It’s called the power of imagination.

And I wish my books were half as daring as Wuthering Heights.

“If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.”

For everything there is to know about Wuthering Heights, visit: http://www.wuthering-heights.co.uk/index.htm

What about you? What is your favorite classic novel? Join the fun here and happy writing!

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The Fantasy Novelist’s Exam by David J. Parker

So I didn’t write this post. This post was first published by David J. Parker (with additional material by Samuel Stoddard) on this website. Since it is awesome, I have decided to share it with you. Visit the RinkWorks Production website for more information.

So here goes…

“Ever since J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis created the worlds of Middle Earth and Narnia, it seems like every windbag off the street thinks he can write great, original fantasy, too. The problem is that most of this “great, original fantasy” is actually poor, derivative fantasy. Frankly, we’re sick of it, so we’ve compiled a list of rip-off tip-offs in the form of an exam. We think anybody considering writing a fantasy novel should be required to take this exam first. Answering “yes” to any one question results in failure and means that the prospective novel should be abandoned at once.”

David J. Parker.

The Exam

  1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
  2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
  3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn’t know it?
  4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
  5. Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
  6. How about one that will destroy it?
  7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about “The One” who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
  8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
  9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
  10. Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
  11. Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
  12. Does “a forgetful wizard” describe any of the characters in your novel?
  13. How about “a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior”?
  14. How about “a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons”?
  15. Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
  16. Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
  17. Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
  18. Would “a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword” aptly describe any of your female characters?
  19. Would “a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan” aptly describe any of your female characters?
  20. Is any character in your novel best described as “a dour dwarf”?
  21. How about “a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage”?
  22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
  23. Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
  24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
  25. Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
  26. Did you draw a map for your novel which includes places named things like “The Blasted Lands” or “The Forest of Fear” or “The Desert of Desolation” or absolutely anything “of Doom”?
  27. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you’ve read the entire book, if even then?
  28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
  29. How about a quintet or a decalogue?
  30. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
  31. Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you’re still many sequels away from finishing your “story”?
  32. Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
  33. Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
  34. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
  35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
  36. Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
  37. Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
  38. Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named “Tim Umber” and “Belthusalanthalus al’Grinsok”?
  39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
  40. How about “orken” or “dwerrows”?
  41. Do you have a race prefixed by “half-“?
  42. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
  43. Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
  44. Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
  45. Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
  46. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
  47. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don’t?
  48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
  49. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won’t break the plot?
  50. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as “fireball” or “lightning bolt”?
  51. Do you ever use the term “mana” in your novel?
  52. Do you ever use the term “plate mail” in your novel?
  53. Heaven help you, do you ever use the term “hit points” in your novel?
  54. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
  55. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
  56. Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
  57. Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
  58. Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
  59. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
  60. Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more? [info]
  61. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
  62. Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
  63. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
  64. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
  65. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an “on the road” meal?
  66. Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
  67. Do you think that “mead” is just a fancy name for “beer”?
  68. Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
  69. Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves’ guild?
  70. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
  71. Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
  72. Is “common” the official language of your world?
  73. Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
  74. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
  75. Read that question again and answer truthfully.

Hoping you enjoyed!

Feel free to leave a comment below…

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ROW80 Check-In #9 and JuNoWriMo update: On Procrastination

Hello gentle reader,

For the past two weeks I have been neglecting my fellow ROWers and instead focusing on the JuNoWriMo writing challenge. For those who don’t know what JuNoWriMo is, check out this post. Oh, and if you’re reading this because you’re looking for my awesome “Clear Your Shelf” Giveaway, you’ll need to look a little bit further: here.

 With JuNoWriMo, my goal is to write every day, even if I don’t make the 50,000-word goal. I hesitated a while before deciding to join in, for two reasons. First, I spend an average of 62 hours a week at work, which means that I only write between 30 minutes and an hour a day. Second, I am a slow writer: I cannot spill 1000 words onto a page in half an hour. So the prospect of having to write an average of 1667 words a day was quite frightening. But I still decided to do the challenge, as it is a great way to keep motivated and to interact with fellow writers.

So how have I been doing, you ask? I have been writing every single day, which I am very happy about. My word count, however, has been lower than the required average of 1667 words a day. As of today my average is 1160 words a day. But I am interacting with fellow writers and keeping motivated (sprints on Twitter are especially good for me!).

What JuNoWriMo has helped me do so far is fighting procrastination. You see, gentle reader, I am terrible when it comes to putting things off. At the beginning of the challenge, I was like this:

Then I set this image as my wall paper on my laptop:

And things got better.

So now, I just…

And it’s been working well so far.

How have you been doing with your writing challenges? Do you have to fight procrastination? How do you do it?

Here is theLinky for the other ROW80 participants…

Have a great week and happy writing!

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The Writer In You Blog Hop – 2

The Writer In You is a blog hop hosted by Katie at The Fiction Diaries. In her own words, “this is a blog hop for all aspiring writers out there. It is a chance to meet other writers and share tips, writing, and experiences, all while gaining new followers for your lovely blog…” Every Saturday, Katie asks a question that we have to answer.

This week’s question is: Do you outline your writing?

I do outline my stories before writing them. I didn’t use to, but over the years I have learnt that outlining your novel before writing it actually 1) saves you time and 2) helps you be a better writer. Because outlining makes you think about your story, makes you deal with the tough questions (Where is this all going? Is this scene/chapter useful for the plot? What are the arcs in my story? etc.) and makes you solve all the problems BEFORE writing the story. So when your outline is done, you can just WRITE. No excuse.

What about you? Do you outline your writing? Join the fun here and happy writing!

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Preparing for JuNoWriMo

Hello gentle reader,

this week I have been getting ready for JuNoWriMo and it is all very exciting…

What is JuNoWriMo?

JuNoWriMo means “June Novel Writing Month”. It was started by Becca J. Campbell and Anna Howard and inspired by NaNoWriMo. The idea is to write the first draft of a 50,000 word book in 30 days. That’s an average of 1667 words per day.  The nice part of the challenge is that you also get to support and interact with other writers.

Getting ready…

The first edition of JuNoWriMo will start on Friday, June 1st and in the meantime, author  Aaron Pogue has been giving his advice on the JuNoWriMo blog to prepare the challenge: in a great series of posts, the idea was to help participants with their synopsis, character description, conflict resolution cycle, and so on… It is worth checking out if you’re interested in prewriting pointers.

Why am I participating?

During the past year, I have written and self-edited the first book in my Epic Fantasy trilogy THE DARKLANDS. I will soon start looking for an agent with it, but in the meantime, I want to take a break from that story. Thus, JuNoWriMo is for me the perfect opportunity to put THE DARKLANDS in a drawer for a month and to work on something else.

This month, I want to write a short YA dystopian novel which has been at the back of my mind for a while. When I say “short”, it is compared to the novel I just finished, which is over 100K… The working title for my JuNoWriMo WIP is BLACK ROSES, but it will most certainly change once I have completed the story. I usually come up with a definite title halfway through the writing process.

What is my JuNoWriMo novel about?

BLACK ROSES is set on the American continent at the end of the 22d Century. A virus has wiped out most of the world population ten years earlier. The only survivors are Humans (who weren’t affected by the virus) and Immortals (who have survived the virus and been turned into supernatural beings). Immortals rule the country and its capital New Wentworth, while Humans live on the margin. However, a third category of people is caught between them: Keepers have survived the virus but haven’t been turned into Immortals. The ruling class needs them in their new society, making them targets for rebel Humans. Seventeen-year-old Nessa is a Keeper. To her, this Friday is just like any other day. She hasn’t planned that Humans would choose it to stage a rebellion, that her life would suddenly be in danger, or that she would fall in love.

Why have I decided to write this specific story for JuNoWriMo?

I have always liked dystopian stories, even when they were just called Science-Fiction. I had the idea for BLACK ROSES years ago: I wrote a synopsis and a few key scenes before filing the thing away. Then the YA dystopian genre took over the world, and I started thinking ‘Maybe I should try and write that story after all.’ I don’t really intend to try and publish it, since the market is now saturated with YA Dystopian stories, but I think I will enjoy writing it in a short amount of time and having my beta readers read it. It will be a good way for me to hone my skills.

Interested in joining the madness?

Sign up for JuNoWriMo here.

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ROW80 Check-In #7

Hello gentle reader,

this week again I’m happy to report that I have been working well toward my ROW80 goal: I’m ALMOST done self-editing my Fantasy novel THE LAST QUEEN… I hope to be completely done by Wednesday.

This week on the blog you can find out if you are like the writers depicted in the movies (here). It’s fun, try and take the test!

I also recommend you join a new meme called The Writer In You, hosted by Katie @The Fiction Diaries. Every Saturday she asks a question about our writing habits.

Finally, I wanted to share with you an infographic called How a Book is Born. It was created by the publishing house Weldon Owen and it shows “the path of a book from idea to final product”.

Here it is:

According to its author, the chart is only 74% accurate… Find out more here.

And last but not least, here is the Linky for the other ROW80 participants…

Have a great week and happy writing!

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The Writer In You Blog Hop – 1

The Writer In You is a blog hop hosted by Katie at The Fiction Diaries. In her own words, “this is a blog hop for all aspiring writers out there. It is a chance to meet other writers and share tips, writing, and experiences, all while gaining new followers for your loverly blog…” Every Saturday, Katie asks a question that we have to answer.

This week’s question is: When and where do you do most of your writing?

I have a very busy life and I tend to write when and where I can. Which is, mostly in the evening and at the weekend. In an ideal world, I would get up early in the morning to write, take a break in the afternoon, then go back to writing in the evening. I like writing at my desk by the window in my living room with music on.

What about you? Join the fun here and happy writing!