Thursday Technicalities: World Building Tools – Weaving Together Plot and World

Introduction

This seemed like a fitting place to begin a new series on Thursday Technicalities since we talk about world building tools on Saturday Setups and since I was just discussing where I learned most of what I know in my newsletter this week. So, yes, we’re going to talk about more world building tools, but this time, we’re going to start examining ways to really weave world building into your story and how you can bring your world to life.

A lot goes into world building writing. There’s lots of room for failure, but it’s not always so easy to succeed at this. Sure, there are lots of ways to weave world building into the story, lots of ways to show your reader this world you’ve built, and lots of ways to world build and many more tips for world building. But more often than not, those methods aren’t used by authors. Worlds either end up flat because the author decided they wanted to flavor their romance/adventure/thriller/etc with fantasy instead of flavoring their fantasy with those other things, or they end up flat because the author didn’t weave the world into the story well and ended up info-dumping, which drives readers nuts. Neither way is a pretty way to die. So, let’s start into how you can avoid this.

Beginnings

For world building to truly work well, you have to understand that what you choose to do outside the story will probably be way more than what you’ll ever show in the story if you take the conventional approach. Now, it doesn’t have to be that way, but usually it is, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But while a series might have room for you to show your reader a picture of your whole world and all the cool things you put into it, a single book will not. This means that when you’re actually considering your world building in light of your novel, you need to do so with the very beginning of the book: when you start working on that kernel of an idea known as your plot.

There are really two, maybe three, ways this happens.

First, you may have a plot but not necessarily the world. In this case, you’re able to start building the world and the plot together. If you’re taking this approach, you can use an approach that Holly Lisle’s world-building course calls SANE world building. You build what you need when you need it and no more (unless you’re just doing it for fun). This approach is good if you’re the sort of person who feels like you can’t start writing until you have every detail of the world nailed down. You’ll never get anywhere doing that, so approaching world building writing as a part of building your plot can help you to tie the two together without going insane or never writing a single word of the story on paper.

Second, you may have the idea for a world, but not a story. This can happen to those of us who love world building writing because we conceive an idea for some sort of power system, magic system, or other world-based structure, but we don’t necessarily have the characters and the stories that are going to populate it. However, in this instance, the world building itself often gives rise to the story. When I was doing my undergrad in accounting, a friend and I came up with a story idea and were co-writing. However, she was taking a long time to do anything on her end, and I was bored, so I started doing world building writing for a bunch of random things and history-related stuff for the world. (Yeah, I know. Nerdy. But I was in accounting, and that was really, really boring.) Long story short, as I was developing the history, I ended up with the idea for Rith’s Disciple, which led to a vague desire to fill out the history following it. When I joined Wattpad’s ONC contest, that desire combined with a really good prompt resulted in Bane of Ashkarith.

Finally, though perhaps not always as common, sometimes you have the idea for a world and a story idea, which leads to further stories. This happened with Bane of Ashkarith. I already had the world established, as I mentioned above, but the history I’d developed for the world gave rise to Bane of Ashkarith and the rest of the series that I’m working on. All of the stories are literally just histories of the famous people from the world’s past. Readers wouldn’t necessarily pick up on that right away unless they knew me and had read about the background behind the series, but because of the combination of the idea for a world and a story together, I ended up with an entire series. Nice when that happens, right?

Expanding our Understanding

I think the other important world building tip for world building enthusiasts (and those who hate it too) to realize is this: world building is more than creating languages, building races, and making up fantastical creatures or cool tech. It’s way more.

Have you ever thought about how strange it would be to us if metal striking stone made a hissing sound instead of a clink? Or what if, when you stepped on grass in the summer, it crunched like gravel but stepping on gravel was soundless? What if the sky was purple, not blue?

When you’re creating a world, building it includes little details. These details can be split into three areas, really. Set, objects that act as props for the set, and mechanisms/methods by which things work.

tHREE aREAS OF pLOT-oRIENTED wORLD-bUILDING

Set is pretty straightforward. Having a sky that’s purple instead of blue is a set item. It sets your world apart from others. Lots of things could be part of the set. Anything from the color of the sky to the way water looks lapping on the sand to the sand itself could be a part of set. To clarify, set is different from your prop objects in that props are things people bring onto the stage. They’re objects like pens, candles, food on a table, or the table itself. Your set is anything that occurs there naturally like trees, bushes, deer paths, bodies of water, and so on.

Your props and objects are just as varied as set. But they’re also a part of world building writing, something Holly Lisle points out in her course on the topic. People don’t often think that props are as important to the stage you’re building for the story as the story or the big flashy fantasy creatures being installed, but they are. The objects around us say a lot about who we are and why we are the way we are. They are our insight into those around us and even into the world. What is there can sometimes be as important as what’s not. If everyone uses candles and not flashlights, that tells you something about the world. If stone doesn’t exist much of anywhere, but people build everything with wood, it says a lot about the set without you ever having to come out and say anything. Objects can also help us to understand the more immaterial mechanisms and rules in place surrounding the world. Those rules have to act upon an object, person, or part of the set. So we can often see them in action and learn those rules of order by observing what they act upon. This can help us to avoid info-dumping or becoming too obtrusive with our world.

Objects carry a lot of weight in the world, though. In a story, if you show us an object, particularly if you show it to us independent of any human interaction, we’ll assume it’s important. Now, maybe you put it there intentionally to tell us what kind of person occupies the space it’s in. Or, maybe it plays some larger role in the story as a whole. Only you know that and can decide. But, the fact remains that if you put it there, it needs to serve a purpose. If it doesn’t serve one, don’t put it in. That’s what leads to overwriting, purple prose, and bored or confused readers. None of those are good, so just don’t do it.

Mechanisms and rules are far less obvious than the first two, but no less important. Mechanisms and rules are what tell us that on Earth, when you drop a coin on a concrete surface, it clinks or gives off a ringing noise. It doesn’t purr because that would be breaking the rules. Mechanisms tell us that healthy grass should bend under our feet and spring back when we step on it in the summer time. It isn’t going to turn into a bunch of deadly spikes and stab the bottoms of our shoes or our feet. If we didn’t have mechanisms and rules to keep things organized and somewhat predictable, then everything would devolve into chaos. Your world is no different in this regard.

The main method for showing mechanisms and rules, however, is different than it was for the first two categories of practical, plot-oriented world-building. For mechanisms and rules, you generally end up showing them when they’re in use on objects, interacting with the set, or affecting a character. They’re seen subtly, but even though most readers don’t immediately pick up on it all the time, they’ll expect it to be a trend unless you’ve made it clear what just happened was really weird.

For example, in the first chapter of Pathway of the Moon, I show my main character, Leo, scaling a wall using shadows to stick himself to the wall. He proceeds to do the same on the way back out of the castle after a successful execution of his target. This sets a precedent or a rule for his magic. Shadows allow those who can use them to stick themselves to different surfaces. I didn’t represent it as an odd thing or something that other shadow users couldn’t utilize, so the reader will anticipate that it’s normal for the world and the character, and if I use it again, they won’t find it odd. These kinds of encounters help to flesh out and build the world for the readers without them even noticing or realizing that you have.

Conclusion

In upcoming posts, I’ll go into some more specific writing tips for slipping world building into your story and talk about the techniques. The point of this post was simply to help you to understand some basics on how you can begin weaving the two together. It is by no means an exhaustive thesis on the subject. I hope that it’s been useful to you, and I hope you’ll stick with me as we explore some of the various ways myself and other authors utilize to develop worlds that readers can delve into and enjoy in their own rights because of their individuality and fresh perspectives.

On Twilight’s Wings Chapter One – Author’s Reading

February 5, 2020 Ariel Paiement

Hi everyone! As you know, On Twilight’s Wings released this month! The paperback is already available, and the ebook will be available soon. I’m really excited about this, and to give you all a sneak peek of the book, I did an audio reading of the first chapter of the book. You can view it here on Youtube.

With that said, I am working on potentially getting the book into audiobook form. If that ends up going through, you guys will hear about it. I’ll keep everyone posted on the blog and through the email newsletter, if you’re subscribed to that. Thanks, everyone, and I hope you enjoy the first chapter!

Work-In-Progress Wednesdays #37

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This week, I finished up chapter fifty-nine of Pathway of the Moon. One more to go, and then it’s done and off to my list of works to edit (which currently consists of only that one piece and part of another, so it’s a short list of books for my own work, at least). I’m extremely excited about this (as I know I’ve said before), and this week’s work-in-progress comes from the most recent chapter.

~~~

Alrian glanced up at the Numahi. “Is this what we need to activate?”

She nodded. “It should be touch-activated. The one on our world was accessible to anyone in Sedra’s circle, but we couldn’t open it. She made sure of that.”

Brennan frowned. “You’re sure this is it? Is it even functional?”

“It is the record system. I’m sure of that, at least. But I don’t know if it will be functional or not. If it isn’t, the written records abandoned here should be enough. It’s written in an older dialect than what you use now, however.”

“Neither of us can read the dialect that far back.” Alrian leaned over and pressed her palm against the dark surface of the orb. “So, let’s hope this thing turns on and translates for us too.”

Just after she touched it, the orb began emitting a pale glow, which grew brighter until it became a piercing beam that scanned over her. What was it doing? Hopefully it wouldn’t kill her. She squeezed her eyes shut and stood still. If it was going to hurt her, it was too late to get out of the way. If she froze, maybe it wouldn’t hurt her? A tiny trill emitted from the glass orb, and she peeked at it. The beam dimmed back to a tolerable glow, and she opened her eyes fully.

“Records activated,” a robotic female voice chirped. “Please request an option from the navigation menu.”

She glanced at Brennan then back to the orb. “What are the options?”

Something whirred, and then the voice came back. “Review log files. View recordings. Enter a new log file. Record a new video file.” The voice spouted off a few more things she didn’t understand then said, “Please request an option from the navigation menu.”

Brennan’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “Umm… View recordings?” He glanced over at her. “What is a recording, anyway?”

The Numahi laughed. “A recording is simply a record that contains audio and sometimes visual that was taken down in the moment it happened. You can communicate using those devices that are programmed to one another, yes?”

She nodded.

“Well, this device is more sophisticated. It can capture that communication and save it.”

Alrian shifted from foot to foot. A device that could capture their words and faces? Didn’t really sound like it led anywhere good, but maybe it could be useful. After all, without that, they wouldn’t be able to activate this old thing and find out what was really going on. She sighed and crossed her arms as the device whirred once more and projected an image onto the table. She squinted down at it with a frown.

Brennan looked equally confused. He poked his finger through the glowing stretch, but the image only moved over his finger too. “What is this?”

The Numahi snickered. “I forget that your communications are primitive here. It’s what we call a holo.”

“How does it work? Magic?”

“No, not magic. Technology. But never mind how it works. You need to tell the device which video to play. If it’s like the ones back home, you can choose based on the dates on the bottom left corner of each still image. If you don’t see something interesting, you can tell the orb to scroll to the next set.”

Brennan looked over at her. “You ready?”

She sucked in a deep breath and nodded. “Let’s just start at the beginning.”

Brennan turned back to the video display. “Show us all the videos starting with Entry One, Year 0.”

The screen changed, and sound poured out into the room. What she heard in that first video made her stomach clench, and sweat beaded her forehead. The creature hadn’t been lying. Maybe it had lied about other things. Who knew? But it hadn’t been lying about this, and even minutes into the first video, she was ready to shut this whole thing down and run. Still, she couldn’t move, couldn’t flee. This had to be heard. The threat was still out there, and who knew what might happen if it found out they still existed? They could all end up in dire danger if the organization backing the odd experiment Sedra was describing on the recording had the power to help her create life itself. This organization played the part of a god, and they had no problem with doing even the profane. If they found Alcardia, everything would be lost.

~~~

That’s it for this week, everyone! Next week, I may have something from the final chapter to share. Then that’s it. No more excerpts from Pathway of the Moon for Work-In-Progress Wednesdays because it’ll be done. I’ll be moving on to new things.

Speaking of new things, I’m participating in Wattpad’s Open Novella Contest this year! I did this last year too, and Bane of Ashkarith was the result. (So everyone who has really like the book, you have that contest to thank. 🙂 They’ve got some pretty good prompts.) This year, my piece is shaping up to have more of a sci-fi feel, but I’m basing it around the prompt “If all else fails, throw a little magic at it.” I’m liking it so far, so you may be seeing some of that on this section of the blog through until April when the novella has to be finished.

Saturday Setup – Creatures: The Usual Suspects

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Introduction

This week, we’re moving from language creation to talking about fantasy creatures. Today, we’re just going to go over some of the typical fantasy creatures and what you ought to be considering for them. Mainly, this week’s post is going to be focusing on bigger creatures like dragons and sea monsters. It won’t be a long post, but I’ll discuss some things I think people overlook a lot when they populate their world with these monolithic creatures.

Problems Presented by Large Creatures

First off, most fantasy novels featuring dragons, giants, sea monsters, and their ilk never take the time to consider some very important factors. Given the size of these creatures, we’ve got a few issues: living space, temperament, and food.

With living space, you’ve got some leeway because if your world is vast and has lots of forests, mountains, and ocean that isn’t being ruined by mankind, then these larger creatures will be fine in this arena. But, it is something to think about. A dragon is by no means a small beast, and it’s going to need lots of room to fly, hunt, and live.

On the temperament side of things, you also have leeway. For creatures similar to humanity in their varied temperaments, such as giants, trolls, or other similar creatures, you may not need a particular environment to satisfy them temperamentally. But if your dragons prefer their privacy and really don’t like humans, you’re going to have a problem if they live near or on human territory. On the flip side, if dragons just adore humans and can’t stand trolls or giants, they might not be so happy living in the mountains or forests away from humans. These sorts of considerations have to be made.

Finally, food! This is the biggest one that nearly every fantasy novel with these creatures ignores. They have to eat something. They’re not going to survive on air, not with those big frames. So what are they going to eat? If they can’t get enough food from hunting big game, then they’re going to spend all their time hunting. A few measly deer from the woods or even a nice cow or two from the local village won’t sustain these creatures. They’re simply too large biologically for this to work, so you’ll have to find a way this can work if you want these guys in your world. Without that, it just isn’t going to make much sense. Granted, readers have been taught to just accept their existence, so you may get away with it on some level, but laziness doesn’t pay, and some subset of avid fantasy readers will notice.

Considerations

Now that you understand the problems, you should be able to figure out where to start for considerations. Take those three main problem areas and start asking yourself how you’ll solve them. Start thinking about what kind of personality your different large creatures have. It’s important that you don’t just throw generic fantasy creatures into your world to give it the flavor of fantasy. Doing that will end with your world feeling flat and unmemorable. So have fun with it. What makes your fantasy creatures unique, and how does that play into considering their needs in the environment around them?

Conclusion

That’s it for this week, everyone! I did promise it would be short. Next time, we’re going to talk a little bit about creating your own creatures. This can be a ton of fun, so I hope you’ll join me for it. See you there!

Flash Fiction Fridays: Cold Hard Stone

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This week’s flash fiction is my take on a writing prompt I recently posted on Pinterest.

~~~

Shauna opened her eyes to…nothing? Inky blackness met her gaze, and she shifted with a soft whine. Pain sparked through her arm, but she ignored it and forced herself to sit up anyway. Where was she? Cold stone met her palms and the backs of her thighs, and she winced. Not being able to see anything was unnerving.

She slid her fingers along the stone until they met empty air. Some sort of pedestal then. How far was it to the floor? She didn’t dare try to climb off this thing without knowing what lay beneath. Really, in this kind of darkness, the floor could be thousands of feet below her or some monster could lurk in the darkness. She’d seen enough to know the monster under the bed wasn’t always the result of an overactive imagination.

But she couldn’t sit here all day, either. Well, maybe not day. Too dark to know if it was day or night wherever she was. Either way, she couldn’t stay here. She felt down the side of the stone she sat on, inch by inch. Nothing snapped at her fingers, but she also couldn’t feel any other surfaces to step on just yet.

Her head ached with the motion, and her injured arm throbbed. While she quested for some indication of where she might be situated and how to escape, she occupied herself with trying to determine what might have happened to her. Had she been drugged? Given how her head felt, quite likely. She must have put up a fight to be injured like this unless whoever dragged her down here and been careless. Why, oh, why– Her fingers brushed against another solid surface.

Cheering mentally, she leaned over to feel along the cool surface. More stone, but it seemed to be more the sort flooring might be made out of. That was a good sign. Even better, it didn’t drop off that she could tell. She slipped her feet over the edge and eased onto the solid ground beneath the stone slab she’d been on. One step at a time, she felt her way along the new surface until she hit a wall.

Walls were good. They meant that, besides stairs, the floor probably didn’t just end somewhere. They also meant she was in a man-made structure of some sort, whether built entirely by hand or built into some sort of cave structure. At least she knew there would be some rhyme or reason to the building. She continued forward, shuffling along at a slow, steady pace.

The darkness in the space eased a bit at a time with each step she took. It felt like an eternity before it happened, but she took a turn with the wall and burst out into a dimly-lit hall. A door stood at the other end, and through the tiny pane of glass, she caught a glimpse of what appeared to be some kind of lab. Had they brought her here to be a guinea pig? If so, why leave her in the dark, unchained and free to roam whenever the drugs they’d given her wore off? Perhaps there was something more going on in that dark place. And just maybe she’d gotten out in the nick of time. She stopped at the door and peered in through the glass pane.

Her breath caught in her chest, and bile rose in her throat. There, on the screens mounted all over the room, was the unmistakable form of some giant creature on the infrared camera feeds. It must have been down in that place she’d come from or somewhere even deeper for whoever owned this place to use infrared cameras to keep an eye on it.

She cracked the door open and slipped inside the unoccupied room. Once inside, she simply stared at everything. The word Behemoth was written in bold red ink across a folder nearby and again in black print on the far wall. Behemoth. Was that the creature or the organization? She reached out and flipped the folder open with trembling fingers.

Pictures of twisted, torn bodies of young women spilled out across the metal table in disarray. She gasped and stepped back, her fingers going to her throat. What was this place? She turned away, stomach heaving, and took one step in the direction of the door.

Black, polished shoes reflected the fluorescent lights. Her gaze traveled up over black slacks, a white lab coat, and a neatly pressed grey shirt until it met a blue gaze as sterile as its owner’s clothing. She swallowed hard.

The man offered her a razor sharp smile. “I see Moth didn’t take you. Well, guess he’s judged you suitable for phase two, which means you’re all mine from here on out.”

A scream lodged itself in her throat.

“Oh, come now. You weren’t eaten alive. This part will be much better than that, I promise. I’m the much gentler side of Behemoth. The face it presents to the world. I won’t hurt you. Much.”

Now why didn’t she believe that? She took a shaky step back and snatched the first sharp object she saw off the table. A pen. How useful.

He eyed it with a bemused grin and slipped a syringe from his pocket. “I can see he chose well, little girl. When you wake up, it’ll all be much less frightening, I promise.”

~~~

That was a little bit longer than the last few have been, but I hope you guys enjoyed it anyway! If you’re curious about what the prompt was or want to give it a try yourself, you can check it out on Pinterest. I post about two writing prompts a week on The Fantasy Nook Blog’s Pinterest page, so if you’re looking for inspiration, head on over and take a look. I also pin other people’s writing prompts when I find interesting ones, so there’s a little of something for everyone, I think.

Thursday Technicalities: Self-Editing

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Introduction

Last week, we talked about the types of edits that can be acquired when you’re ready for an editor. But what if you can’t afford an editor or just want to make sure the edit will take less time so you don’t have to pay as much? As an editor, I always encourage people to get an editor before publishing, particularly self-publishing, but I also understand that not everyone has the money to do that. So what can you do if you’re in that situation? You can self-edit.

Basics of Self-Editing

To begin with, let me say this. Self-editing means nothing if you don’t have a clue how to do it. This is why I recommend that authors find an editor who can help them in this area. Why? Because frankly, most authors can’t do both. There’s no shame in that. They’re not bad writers because of it, certainly. I’ve helped out plenty of people who had great ideas and even an okay execution of the idea, but they didn’t know how to edit it so that it would truly come to life. So, chances are pretty high that you may not have any idea how to edit, even if you know your way around writing a story well enough.

If you’re in that situation, again, there’s no reason for embarrassment. It’s a normal situation to be in. You should, however, take the time to learn about editing. I know it takes time and that time is often in short supply for all of us, but self-editing means you are going to be your own editor, and whether or not readers can really enjoy the story depends entirely upon not just how well you write but also how well you can edit.

This post can’t possibly cover everything you need to know about self-editing. There’s simply far too much to cover, and you’re not going to be able to learn it all overnight. You should approach this with the basic understanding that self-editing is your doing the same things an editor would do. Since that requires a lot of knowledge, the rest of the post will be going over resources you can use to learn how to be a better self-editor. You have to learn and practice editing the same way you had to learn and practice writing. The two are related but separate competencies, and they require very different mindsets and knowledge bases.

Resources

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King: This one is a really good book to start with if you have no self-editing experience. It’s at the top of the list because it’s more modern than book two on the list but still covers a good mix of basic and advanced topics. It’s well-organized and moves from simple to complex.
Strunk and White’s Elements of Style by Strunk and White: You should read this if you read nothing else. It’s a bit drier than Browne and King’s book listed above, but it’s just as relevant, and you’ll learn a lot, particularly about the grammar and style portions of editing that every editor should know. I recommend it to both authors and to those asking me for editing advice. For all its dryness, the book is still indispensable, and once you’ve read through it once, you can continue to use it as a reference while editing.
Revision and Self-Editing by James Scott Bell: This comes from a bit more of a writing perspective based on the pieces I’ve looked through for reference. I’m reading through it in its entirety now, and it’s packed with useful examples, information, and pieces of advice from editors and authors who have experience in the field. Bell also has a pretty good sense of humor, in my opinion, and it comes out in the way he says things or the selections he chooses for examples. This one’s definitely not a terribly difficult read either.
Woe is I: A Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English by Patricia T. O’Conner: I haven’t personally read this one, but it’s a national best-seller recommended by editors for people looking to self-edit. It focuses more on the sentence-level edit, something every book benefits from but often doesn’t get. Welcome to the world where you agonize over every page, paragraph, sentence, and word in your book. Fun stuff, right? In all seriousness though, this book is well-known for being a humorous, fun approach to teaching you what you need to know about grammar and sentence-level edits.
Editing Mastery: How to Edit Writing to Perfection by Shani Raja: This is an online course with Udemy written by an ex-Wall Street Journal editor. I’ve gone through almost half the course, and it’s been one of the most valuable resources I’ve ever come across. It’ll teach you how to do a deep edit like some of the world’s top editors do. The course example and practice assignment focuses mainly on non-fiction, but I’ve found that the principles are fairly easy to apply to fiction of any sort as well.

Conclusion

I hope the resources I’ve provided help you out in your self-editing journey. It’s not an easy area to master, frankly, but the resources above have been some of the most useful ones I’ve come across in my time both freelance editing and self-editing. Whatever you choose to do, I wish you best of luck with your piece!

Work-In-Progress Wednesdays #36

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This week’s work-in-progress comes from Pathway of the Moon, mainly because that’s what I’ve been working on most lately. I’m getting so close to done, and I’m definitely feeling end-of-book jitters. More than usual, in fact, but I guess that’s to be expected since the book is way longer than anything I’ve ever done before. But, hey, I’m still excited to write the sequel, so that’s probably a good sign, I think.

~~~

THE CEREMONY WAS finally here, and it didn’t quite seem real. She stood at the front of the small chapel with her hands in Leo’s, and for the first time, it slowly started to sink in. She would be his Bond when this finished. Really, truly, his. A small tremor zipped down her spine. Before today, she’d dreamed of this moment and spent hours fantasizing about it. It wasn’t everything she’d dreamed of. But it was everything she really needed.

Anyone who mattered even a little sat in the rustic pews and watched the two of them as they placed their interlocked hands over the bowl of clear, fresh water on the altar. In the old days, this would have been done in a large pool of water for larger chapels or at a stream for chapels without the ability to furnish the pool. Now, they kept the symbol without the actual ancient tradition. She stared into the clear water. A symbol not only of the purity of their intentions today but also a sign of the clarity and transparency that was to characterize their lives as Bonds.

The presiding minister stepped forward and wrapped a leafy length of vine around their hands to show the way their lives would be bound to each other’s, and she smiled. The words of the ceremony barely registered. Didn’t matter anyway. She knew that she could pledge herself to the man standing across from her with no doubts or reservations.

He squeezed her hands with a smile of his own, and she knew he wasn’t paying close attention to the droning of the minister either. She blushed and lowered her head. Her mind drifted toward the other ways they’d become Bonded after the ceremony. They’d been holding back on it for long enough, and finally, the waiting would end. No more interruptions or people keeping them apart. If anyone tried to get in the way of her Bonding night, she couldn’t be held responsible for what she’d do. Her entire body was ready to combust with a single touch from him, and the gentle pressure he was putting on her hands felt like a silent promise.

And then the minister was asking her for her vows, and she resurfaced just in time to recite them. If she was being honest, she doubted she’d remember much about this part of the ceremony. It already felt like a blur, and she hadn’t even finished going through it yet. Years from now, her Bond’s expression and the love shining in his eyes would probably be all she remembered. That thought didn’t bother her nearly as much as she’d expected it to, though. Really, Leo and her new family was all that mattered. The ceremony was a formality to allow the Bonding magic to unite their ashtras. Nothing more.

The priest kept droning on for a few more minutes, and Leo rolled his eyes. She glanced out across the crowd and caught a smirk on Brennan’s face. At least one person had caught onto their impatience. A bubble of laughter welled up inside her, but she squashed it. Laughing now would be highly inappropriate. Leo looked like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to rush the priest or laugh about how stuffy the man sounded. Well, they were in this together then. Just like they would be in everything else from now on.

Finally, the priest said the only words Leo had been waiting for this entire ceremony. The moment he had permission from the priest, he dipped her back and covered her mouth with his. No chaste, polite peck for him. He had to devour her lips like a man dying of thirst. She clutched his broad shoulders for balance, knowing this was only a small taste of what she’d get later. Her cheeks heated, but she liked that he wasn’t shy about declaring his affections even if Nadar did cough when the kiss went on a little too long. He finally let her come up for air, but his dark gaze whispered promises for the minute he got her back to his room. She shivered and didn’t let go of his shoulders as his gaze swallowed her whole.

~~~

Well, that’s all for this week, everyone! What are you guys working on? Anything you’re finding fun and exciting? For those of you who don’t write, what are you reading? Feel free to share in the comments!

Flash Fiction Fridays – Guardian

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This week’s Flash Fiction Friday is another one based on a prompt I found on Pinterest. This one is built on the premise that everyone but you has a guardian angel. Instead, you have a guardian demon who deals with things in more violent but much more efficient fashion. It sounded interesting, so let’s see where this goes.

~~~

“Did you really have to do that?” I pointed to the corpse with his burned-out eyes and open mouth, which had, just seconds ago, been releasing a lot of noise. A lot of hot air too. Seriously, he should have known no one could reason with a demon. I’d figured it out ages ago. Hadn’t taken me more than a few hours after he showed up.

“He was a danger to you.”

“Azariel, he just wanted my wallet.”

“I know humans and their dark intentions, little girl. I’ve been around a few times. Seen things you couldn’t even imagine.” Azariel examined his sharp, curving claws with a sniff. “He would’ve done much worse than steal your wallet.”

“Thanks for that image.” I gagged and turned away from the corpse. “But you can’t murder everyone who comes after me!”

“Why not? I’m not an angel, pet. I’m a demon, and demons create havoc, destroy things, and lead humans astray.”

I groaned and shook my head. “Remind me again why you’re here? I never asked for a guardian—angel or demon—but I certainly would’ve chosen anything but you.”

“Such bratty behavior for someone who would’ve died if I hadn’t stepped in.” Azariel smiled at me and flicked my wayward bangs out of my eyes. “Really, Ash, would it kill you to be grateful? I know I’m supposed to encourage greed and all other banal, wicked attitudes in humans, but I have feelings too. I’d appreciate a little bit of thankfulness for saving your life.”

“Azariel,” I drawled. “You have been leaving a trail of corpses behind you since we met a month ago. I’m going to end up in jail as a serial killer, and my life will basically be over anyway. Can you pleasejust let me handle things and, I don’t know, buzz off?”

“That would be boring.”

“You’re thousands of years old. You don’t need me to amuse you. Find some other human to toy with. I don’t need the devil’s protection.”

Azariel pursed his lips. “Well, it’s all you’ve got right now.”

“And I’m telling you, I don’t want it. I know the cost associated with it way too well.” I grimaced, hating that I couldn’t get him off my back. Really, I’d seen what contracting with demons resulted in, and I didn’t want any part. Maybe I might not have a guardian angel, but I could live with that. God could decide when I went, guardian angel, demon, or whatever. Not like anything was going to stop Him, and I didn’t want anything to do with this demon since it seriously increased my chances of ending up dead.

Azariel had been silent for too long. He looked like he was in pain, but then the expression flashed away, replaced with the usual smugness he projected. “What if I said I’d stop being your guardian demon?”

“On what conditions? My immortal soul?” I crossed my arms. “Come on, Azariel, what do you take me for? A fool?”

“Well… You did almost let that man—”

I raised a hand. “Enough. I get the idea. What will I have to give you in return for getting rid of you? Hmm? My firstborn child?”

Azariel shivered in disgust. “Good gods, no. What would I do with a baby? Eat it?”

I gagged. “Seriously? That’s the first thing you come up with?”

He shrugged with an innocent smile. “I’m a demon? Generally, my first idea is the most violent one.”

Unbelievable. “What. Do. You. Want?”

“Well, I’m not going to leave. But I’ll stop being your guardian demon.”

I face-palmed. “That doesn’t get rid of you.”

“Nope. But it does exonerate you of the price you’d have to pay for my guardianship.”

I stalked off down the alley. “Stupid demons. I’m going to snap his neck like a twig one of these days, I swear.”

“I heard that.”

Well, good. He was supposed to.

~~~

Well, that’s it for this week’s Flash Fiction Friday. Hope you enjoyed it. As always, if you have something you’d like to see here, feel free to reach out in the comments or by email!

Thursday Technicalities – Types of Edits

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Introduction

Editing. Doesn’t everyone just love it? Well, some of us do. If you’re like me, one of your favorite parts of the writing process is actually the rewriting and editing stage, at least when there’s not a huge time crunch. I know, I know. It’s weird. Most writers really can’t stand this process, and most writers don’t have a clue how to go about it. Now, most of us are capable enough of catching the stray grammar error or glaring plot hole, but many times, writers–and even published authors–don’t know what it takes to make their book publish-worthy material. That’s the job of their editor.

Which begs the question. How do you know what kind of edit your work needs if you’ve never done this or if you haven’t worked with an editor before? I’m glad you asked because that’s what today’s discussion is all about! Let’s get right into it.

If you’re a beginning writer, chances are you need a deep edit. A deep edit goes through several stages and looks at everything from story structure and big picture stuff to the gritty details of sentence structure and word choice. This is a quite extensive edit, and most freelance editors I’ve spoken to specialize in specific areas, so a deep edit from one editor may be difficult to achieve. This means that, often, a beginner writer may need to find two or even three editors to look at the piece. This obviously isn’t the most fun thing to work with, but if you can find one or two editors who are able to compliment each other’s skill sets to give your piece a well-rounded edit, that’s usually easiest. For those of you in this situation, the key is to look for an editor or editors who note that they’re good with content editing, structural editing, style editing, and presentation editing. For fiction, these areas may not be presented exactly with these titles, so read on to find out what kinds of things fall under each so you have a better idea of what you’re looking for.

If you’re not a beginning writer, you probably know what areas you struggle with frequently. Chances are you don’t struggle with all of them, though you may struggle with more than one. So I’m going to break down the stages of deep editing for both you and the beginners wanting to know what each stage entails. This way, you will have a better idea of what skill set you need to find in an editor to give your book an edit best fit for it.

Content Edit

A content edit is the first step a deep editor takes in editing a piece. In fiction, a content edit is going to take a look at the purpose of the piece, the genre it’s in, and what it contains. The point of this level of editing is essentially to ensure that every major point in the book or story revolves around the purpose, genre, and main idea of the story. This kind of edit gets rid of scenes that might be unnecessary or repetitions of previous scenes that made the point already. It will eliminate rambling and make the piece more concise. It will also focus on adding anything that’s missing. Practically speaking, a content edit is focusing mostly on the plot of the story in fiction and making sure that the book’s scenes make that plot work from beginning to end.

Structure Edit

With this type of edit, the editor is going to shift gears to look at the angle and narrative structure. Depending on the work, there may not be any particular angle, but there will be a narrative structure. This type of editing will make sure that each point in the narrative structure is ordered elegantly and works smoothly with the others.

Style Edit

Here, we start getting into the finer details. A style editor is going to look over the work to remove clutter in your scenes, paragraphs, and sentences. This edit fine tunes and refines the work so that the narrative style really shines. This one is, perhaps, one of the more difficult edits to do because it calls for someone who will really dig down into the piece to look at things like word choices, sentence structure, and pacing using more technical avenues like paragraph and sentence lengths. Having done this before, I can attest to how much work this is. Sometimes, it can be a hard call on whether something is clutter or necessary and whether to use one word instead of another in a specific sentence. However, these changes can make a huge difference in a piece, so if you can’t do this yourself, find someone who can.

Please note that an edit like this doesn’t focus on fixing grammatical errors or presenting things in a clean, professional way on the page. That’s saved for a presentation edit. What this edit will do is improve your narrative style, make your ending resonate with the reader, make your middle flow from paragraph to paragraph seemingly effortlessly, and make your beginning arresting to the reader. If that’s what your book is missing, this is the type of edit you need, so find an editor who specializes in this area.

Presentation Edit

Last editing stage, everyone! In this stage, your editor will worry about the nitty-gritty details of grammar and punctuation. They’re going to look for those pesky misplaced commas or fix misspellings. They’ll read it through to make sure that any leftover sentences that might trip readers up are removed, and they’ll trim the sentences you don’t need if necessary. This stage cleans up your manuscript and makes it ready for presenting in its final form to your reader. If you’re able to do the first three types of edits on your own, it may still pay off to have someone do this sort of edit for a piece. As humans, we’re prone to error, so having someone else take a quick look through our work to clean up any missed problems is usually a very wise decision.

Conclusion

I hope this has been informative for you all! Next week, we’ll start talking about some of the specifics on knowing where your work is at, knowing when to self-edit, and knowing who to hire when you need an editor. This area is one that I see a lot of uncertainty about, particularly with writers new to the editing process, and a lot of mistakes can be made. My hope is that, in the upcoming weeks, I can take some of the stress and confusion out of the process for you!

On Twilight’s Wings – Upcoming Release

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Hey, everyone! My next release is coming up soon, so I’m posting to let you all know a bit about it. On Twilight’s Wings is the first in a series of YA fantasy novels set on an alternate world. The story centers around a web of secrets, a kidnapped bride, a jilted lover, and a dethroned prince. I’ve included the information for the book below.

The soft release for the ebook is on February 15th for those who pre-ordered. However, there are some technical things I have to do to get the book (both ebook and paperback) into the right categories, and I want to give reviewers time to read the book before any reviews are due. As such, the “official” release date will be March 30th. I’m planning to do something to celebrate the launch over on Facebook. Depending on my schedule, it may not be a full-blown launch party, but I’ll probably be doing a giveaway of some type to celebrate the release, and I may share some excerpts from the book or even do some videos with readings. More details will be out about that once I actually finalize plans and figure out what I’m doing.

Blurb:

She is the key to everything.

Until a few months ago, Cat’s only worries were about her foster parents and whether she’ll be shipped off to another boarding school over the summer. Dealing with a painful past and a friendless existence were at the top of her priority list.

All of that is about to change.

Shortly after she finds out that she’ll be remaining home for the summer, the visions, headaches, and terrible pains start. Then a new guy shows up in her quiet neighborhood, and, suddenly, her visions are showing events surrounding him and other strange beings.
Nothing is as it seems.

In this new world, nothing is the way it was, and everything requires her to become more than a frightened foster kid trying to make it through the day. She’s determined to get answers, but the more she sees in her visions, the less certain she is that she wants those answers.

But answers are coming.

Like it or not.

Final Notes:

For those wondering, I do have the sequel written already. I have to go through and do an extensive edit on it, but my plan is to have it out around this same time next year just like I did with this one. I will warn you that there’s a cliff-hanger, but I’m not cruel enough to leave you hanging on that for a full year (unless you really want to wait that long). So, if you head over to my Wattpad profile, you can find the first chapter of the second book there. It resolves the cliffhanger. It isn’t fully edited, I will warn you, but it’s not so bad that I felt embarrassed to leave it up, for whatever that’s worth.

You can get a copy of the book on Amazon or Kobo, and, later on, I will also be putting it up on Barnes and Noble if Nook or a paperback that isn’t from Amazon happen to be your preferences for reading. I’ll be putting up links for the book once I have everything all settled and sorted out.

If you guys want a free copy of the book, I have ARC copies available. You can apply to get a review copy from me at StoryOrigin or email me, and we can discuss a timeline for it. If you’re looking to read the book but don’t feel you can justify purchasing it at this moment in time, I get it. This is a great way for you to read it in exchange for a review instead of purchasing a copy. Otherwise, the pre-order is available on Amazon, and the book is already out on Kobo (since the background stuff Amazon makes me go through to categorize it the way it should be categorized isn’t necessary on Kobo, so far as I know.).

Parents, this book is intended for a slightly older teen audience. It does involve some discussion of abuse, sexual harassment, and rape due to the nature of one of the character’s pasts and the ongoing situation in the book. However, aside from a few scenes that mention it or points where the main character opens up about her past, nothing is shown. I’ve kept content PG-13 and as sensitive to these difficult topics as I could. That said, the book is probably best suited for teens who are at least 15 and have the ability to understand the seriousness of these topics as well as that these behaviors are never okay.

If these kinds of things are triggering to you, you may want to steer clear of the book. While the main character overcomes her past throughout the course of the book, the journey to get there is difficult and long. If that’s going to bother you, then the book probably isn’t for you. I understand that not every book will be for everyone, and I want to make sure my work doesn’t cause mental distress to people unnecessarily or without prior warning, particular on issues like these.