WriteTip

by

Character Meet—White Mesa Chronicles

The publication date of White Mesa Chronicles Book 1: Soldier is upon us! To celebrate, I’d like you to meet some of the principal players!

White Mesa has one of the largest casts I’ve written (necessarily, being a series) and it took me quite a few drafts to get all their personalities nailed down. It was fun getting to know them, though!

In the effort to refine the characters’ essence, and make them not identical to myself 😊, I’ve used a number of character types and writer tricks. See what you think!

Capt. Lasky; Image credit: TVTropes.org

Thomas “Tommy” Thaxton

  • Family: General Michael Thaxton (member of the WM security council) and Dr. Joanna Thaxton (missing, presumed dead). No siblings.
  • Glass is 🍵 half-full or half-empty?: Half a cup only comes to a quarter-cup of water for each of us, but you can have my share because…you know…that’s the right thing to do…
  • Temperament: Melancholic
  • Favorite book/movie/TV show: That Hideous Strength, C.S. Lewis; Columbo
  • Destiny Class: Sun-singer Warlock (Knowledge) [New Monarchy]
  • D&D/WoW Class: Paladin [DPS]  Alignment: Lawful Good
  • StarCraft race: Terran
  • Strengths: Sniping, Charisma, Compassion;  Fears: Heights, Failure
  • Favorite means of transportation: truck or bicycle

Continue reading →

by

Author’s Guild Rails at Amazon’s Buy-Box

(This post might be more interesting to the authors among us, but readers and buyers-of-books are also affected by the dynamics of this issue.)

Amazon is Changing – Everybody Panic!

Author’sGuild.org recently posted an article discussing a change in Amazon’s algorithms regarding who gets top billing in what is called the “buy box” of books – apparently the display at the top that lists all available formats and the relative prices. As you might know, a little farther down appear links to other retailers offering “used” or “new” copies of the books.Author's Guild Rails at Amazon's Buy-Box — Kimia Wood

Currently, Amazon places itself in the prime “buy box” spot, as the first buy-option people see, but according to the article Amazon intends to use metrics to allow third-party retailers the chance to get in that prize spot. (Amazon gets its stock from the publishers, but acts as the distributor itself.)

Author’s Guild (AG) is incensed at the suggested change, but on reading their article I find their arguments less than compelling. Continue reading →

Top Ten Book Turn-offs
by

Top Ten Book Turn-offs

“Top Ten Tuesday” – the weekly bookish list event curated by the Broke and Bookish blog – has as its theme this week “Top Ten Things That Will Make Me Instantly NOT Want To Read A Book“.

In approximate order from least the greatest:

Things I’m Indifferent To (At Best)

These I can more or less tolerate in a book, but they certainly aren’t a hook for me in picking it up.

1. Romance

 

Top Ten Book Turn-Offs — Kimia Wood

This romance works for me because it’s not too sugary…just a little. Also, it’s in a medium where I’m prepared for it. Image from Amazon

I do read romance – or books that contain romance – but it’s not what is called a “turn on” for me. I also get extra annoyed by the clichés of romance: especially the attitude that romance is the be-all and end-all of life, relationships where it’s unclear what drew them to each other at all, and mooning. I have very little patience for mooning – it’s too close to angst.

I also don’t appreciate excessive physical descriptions of the love interest. I get physical attraction – I do – but there’s so much more to founding a lasting relationship, and to focus on the physical (his hands! his muscular hands, ending in muscular fingers!) gets really old really fast. Continue reading →

by

Diversity in Games

The YouTube team ExtraCredits creates short, thought-provoking videos about the craft of game design, story creation, the philosophy and psychology of building and playing video games, and other cool stuff.

One of their videos discusses Rust by Facepunch Studios, a multi-player survival game. In Rust, the physical appearance of every player’s character is randomly generated: specifically their skin color. The format doesn’t allow for re-rolling, so whatever your character looks like is what you’re stuck with – what you’re “born with,” as it were.

Continue reading →

by

“Ranger’s Apprentice” & Bad Cliffhangers

The Book I Loved, the Series I Stopped

"Ranger's Apprentice" and Bad Cliffhangers — Kimia Wood — series

I haz rifle – and a pet spider. Ergo, I’s awesome.

Rangers Apprentice, by John A. Flanagan, is a series highly recommended to me by a good friend of mine. It follows the adventures of a group of characters in a quasi-mystical land where “Rangers” (Rogues, Hunters, Hide-in-shadows-shooting-with-deadly-accuracy-awesome, whatever the name is) train and serve the king of Araluen.

Sadly, it is also the series I think back on when I think of the wrong way to do cliffhangers. Differences in fiction taste aside, here’s why I loved the first book, but finally gave up on the series.

The Case Studies

"Ranger's Apprentice" and Bad Cliffhangers — Kimia Wood — series1 The Ruins of Gorlan: They have always scared him in the past—the Rangers, with their dark cloaks and shadowy ways. The villagers believe the Rangers practice magic that makes them invisible to ordinary people. And now 15-year-old Will, always small for his age, has been chosen as a Ranger’s apprentice. What he doesn’t yet realize is that the Rangers are the protectors of the kingdom. Highly trained in the skills of battle and surveillance, they fight the battles before the battles reach the people. And as Will is about to learn, there is a large battle brewing. The exiled Morgarath, Lord of the Mountains of Rain and Night, is gathering his forces for an attack on the kingdom. This time, he will not be denied…

I’ve heard this book get some flack, but it was my favorite. Continue reading →

by

Writing Post Round-up 2016

I enjoy Twitter – and what I enjoy most is sharing and finding new blog posts or resources to help me in my writing journey. I realize not all of us are writers as well as readers, but for those who enjoy both, here are the articles/posts I’ve found most helpful or interesting this past year.

(I read 99% of the articles I tweet out, but not all of them are worth going back to later. The ones below are worth the effort!)Writing Post Round-Up 2016 — Kimia Wood

The Authoring Landscape

The Man Behind the Mask: On the Creation of Batman—and Rewriting Authorship Itself,

by Sean P. Carlin (@SeanPCarlin):
A long and thought-provoking post about assigning authorship to intellectual property, the hazards of mob rule, “correcting for history”, and the baffling fact that someone has published a collection of Shakespeare’s works with Christopher Marlowe as co-author. Important read with telling worldview implications. Continue reading →

by

Trump’s Victory Illustrates Self-Publishing

What the Vote Tells Writers About Ourselves

Trump's Victory Illustrates Self-Publishing — Kimia Wood — self-publishing

Image credit: ABCNews

Much has been said of Donald Trump’s recent election as president of the U.S.

I think it can be used to illustrate the self-publishing environment, with some worldview implications that are very interesting.

The ebook market of the last decade or so has been deluged in material, especially from small-scale authors. It’s no longer necessary to get an agent or sign a publishing contract; all that’s needed to get your words in front of people is a few basic tech resources and a document of text.

Authors (typically) like this, and I think one of the reasons is they can do what they want. Continue reading →

by

“Loglines in the Wild” by Jordan Smith

Conversational, Accessible Tip-sheet

51i10MFRoJL Jordan Smith’s previous work Finding The Core Of Your Story was a step-by-step guide to composing a logline – a one sentence summary of the “through-line” of a book’s plot. This is especially useful for authors trying to clarify and market their own works, but a logline can also be fun for readers eager to share their favorite reads with others.

For those (like me) who love to see things in action and so love examples, Loglines In The Wild provides eight case studies of real independent authors crafting loglines to help them with writing and marketing their ideas. Continue reading →

by

Meet My NaNoWriMo “Persona”

Get to Know (Part of) Me

fate-abilities

Image credit: swshinn.com

There’s a problem with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). And I don’t mean the write-50,000-words-in-30-days thing.

You’re not allowed to start until November 1. So you spend October outlining, planning, brainstorming, world-building. And being frustrated because you love your book so much but you can’t write a word YET.

In preparation for NaNoWriMo, I did something I haven’t done a lot: interview my characters. I had fun with this one, and I’m sharing it as an example (because who doesn’t love free examples?). Continue reading →

by

Class Your Character

What Would Your Character Be?

smaller I came up with a cool way to explore your characters. It’s all about archetypes (which are like stereotypes, but good).

Here it is: what role-playing class would they be? Not just in their fighting styles, but in their essential method of dealing with life.

Maybe you’ve already thought of something similar, but it sounded like fun to me. I’ll use some examples from popular fiction, and from my own works to show the brainstorming in action. Warning: major geek alert! If you’re not up on the World of Warcraft/DnD field, here’s a quick crash course (with pictures!). Continue reading →