Category Archives: writing
Looking for Blog Tour Hosts for September!
If you have a blog or know of one that might fit the bill, please leave a comment or tweet me @authorjkjohnson.
Thanks!
How Many Points of View?
As I was planning out The Cerberus Rebellion, I had to make a decision on how many Point of View characters I wanted to include.
I had already concluded that I would be writing in third-person limited. I have written some short stories in first person and I have a couple of pen-on-paper novels written in third person omniscient, but right now 3rd Limited is where I feel comfortable. I like how 3rd Limited allows you to show a character from a different point of view by having them appear in someone else’s POV chapter.
Part of my goal in writing The Cerberus Rebellion is to tell the story of how the events of the book, and ultimately the series, affect my main characters.
I wanted to avoid the overwhelming number of points of view (especially as seen in the Song of Ice and Fire novels by George RR Martin) while at the same time telling the full spectrum of my story.
I’ve decided to start my first novel with 4 main points of view. I was going to include some secondary POV characters for one-shot chapters but decided that those stories could be used for short stories or novellas at a later time (kind of how David Weber fills out information through his anthologies).
How do you decide on how many POV characters to use? Do you think more than 1 is too many or do you like to see multiple sides of the story?
Getting the Ball Rolling
And by “Ball” I mean Advertising/Buzz.
While The Cerberus Rebellion may only be half-done, it is fully on track for a late August release. And as I look around at the various book blogs and advertising venues, it’s easy to see that now is the time for me to get going on my advertising.
I’ve already schedule an Author Interview on Two Ends of the Pen that will be posted September the 14th. I’ve also put in an email to the Kindle Fire Department to see if they do scheduling that far ahead.
I’m looking into sites where I might be able to do an interview before my book is published as a way to garner some new followers but I’m thinking that it may be best to wait until it’s ready to sell before I get too much attention.
Anyways, when do you start your promoting for a new book? And do you have any suggestions for sites or blogs to talk to about an author interview or feature piece?
Any advice would be great!
"Success" as a Self-Publisher
When discussing any endeavor one of the things that comes up is whether or not you are “Successful”.
Short Stories as World Building
As I approach the halfway point in writing the first draft of “Griffins and Gunpowder: The Cerberus Rebellion” I have been thinking about ways to provide backstory without infodumping in the middle of a chapter
I think that one way to do this is to write some of this backstory and information not crucial to the plot (yet still useful) in the form of short stories, novellas and novelettes.
I’m hoping that this will serve both as extra information for those that are interested and as a way to introduce readers to my world and maybe convince them to buy my larger works.
To this end I have roughly plotted out the first 3 Short Stories, a Novella and a Novelette for my world.
Through these stories I intend to provide some context to the catalyst for my series arc, some back story for one of my secondary characters and for one of my main characters.
So how have you countered the problem of infodumping? Have you gradually worked it into the main story, used short stories to tell some of the background information or have you found another way to provide background without overloading the reader?
Leave a comment below and let me know your methods.
When it rains…
…it pours.
After fretting so much about the title of first Gunpowder Fantasy novel – how much of the plot to give away with the name, how to tie it to the relevant part of the story, etc – I finally decided on “The Cerberus Rebellion”.
It makes it clear what the book is going to focus on without giving away too much.
Soon after, the titles for the subsequent parts of the series and even a strong candidate for Series Name have emerged.
My current leader for series name is Griffins and Gunpowder:(Insert Book Name Here)
And for book names I’m looking at using the sigil of each house as the focal point for the book and having that house do a lot of the work.
The only thing that has to be settled is the sigil of a major house. I was going to have their sigil be a great-eagle but I couldn’t find a solid phrase that would work for a title.
So now I’m leaning towards tiger or great-boar.
The problem also arises that if I can’t get everything done in my planned stretch I’m going to run out of houses to focus on and will have to break my convention. But I suppose that I’ll build that bridge if it cones to it.
Finally Found It!
So I think I’ve finally found my title (or at least narrowed it down to 2 options)!
Goals for this Year, as an Author
I’m going to admit, this is mostly a “To-Do” list for myself as I have a terrible time remembering the most mundane details of day-to-day life (ask my wife) while I remember the most minute details of half a dozen different fictional worlds.
My primary goal, obviously, is to get my current WiP finished, run through beta-readers, edited and published. In working toward that goal, however, there are smaller milestones that I need to accomplish.
The first of which is purchasing my Scrivener key. At the suggestion of several people on twitter and kindleboards, I decided to give this program a try and boy do I love it! The ability to have all of my research notes, family trees, character profiles and the like in one place makes life easier.
I also need to get a website going. Hopefully my wife can find some time to help me with that in between her part time job and handling the now-walking hurricane that is our 1yr old son.
Doing the math with where I am in my plot-line, how many words I’ve written and how many words I average per weekend, I think that by June or July I should have the novel through at least two rounds of beta-readers and hopefully have an editor arranged to send it off to.
I’m also considering writing some short stories or novellas to go along side this world (maybe build some buzz for it) that I plan to write while my book is with my beta readers.
So we’ll see how much I get done this year.
Brave New World
One of the problems that I’ve come across already is the lack of previous work in this area. There are a handful of books that have used this sub-genre title and I’m sure that there are other previous works that have integrated gunpowder into a typical fantasy setting.
The problem of course is finding those works.
So in writing my Gunpowder Fantasy, I’ve had very little in the way of other work to compare mine too.
I think this will probably work to my advantage as I will have a completely clean slate to work against. I don’t have many preconceived ways to integrate the magical elements of my world with the rest of my world.
Gunpowder Fantasy
So after doing a little bit of research, I have discovered that I’m not the only person writing “Gunpowder Fantasy.” That is: fantasy set in a world that includes gunpowder and it’s associated weaponry but does not focus on steam-power or other elements typical of a “steampunk” novel.
Some previous work in this area includes Winter Wolves (Amazon link) and The Black Prism (Wiki link).
It doesn’t seem to be a particularly expansive sub-genre (a google search really only turned up these two links). However, I’m definitely going to continue on my current path and work in this sub-genre with my Yet-To-Be-Named-Novel.
And as for YtbNN, it decided to throw me a curveball and adjust the plot-line, leaving around 30,000 words that need to be adjusted to fit the new pace of the plot. And as I was reworking the plot I realized that the way that my world was set up wasn’t going to work either. So I’ve remapped the world, twice.
On this current world, I’ve added another two major nations and a handful of city-states that are currently just going to be secondary background work (who knows, maybe they’ll play a major part later).
My overall plot for Book 1 is still intact, however, and as I work through it I will be working on the overall plot for the series and on Book 2 as well.
Gunpowder Fantasy 