Why self-publish? And ‘The Last Knight’
Posted: July 4, 2013 Filed under: On Books, On writing | Tags: blog hop, book launch, guest post, self-publishing, young adult Leave a commentA little while ago I posted my four reasons why I chose not to self-publish. I made the point, though, that I don’t jude self-publishing or those that do it, just that it wasn’t the right decision for me at the time. So, in the interests of balance, my guest post today is by Nicola S. Dorrington, about why she chose to self-publish her debut novel, THE LAST KNIGHT.
Nicola S. Dorrington
I never planned on self-publishing. Like most writers I dreamed of the ideal. Securing an incredible agent, then getting a fantastic book deal with one of the big publishers. After that is was all fame and fortune and ‘the next J.K Rowling’.
Funny how dreams don’t work out the way you expect them to.
When I tell people I’m self-publishing the first question I get asked is why.
The fact is, my reasons for self-publishing are mine alone. It’s not the right path for everyone, but it is the right path for me.
Let me break my reasons down for you.
The first reason is that the publishing industry is first and foremost a money-making business. I get that and I respect it. But it does mean that publishers are not risk-takers. I don’t blame them. Why risk large sums of money on an untried and untested new author – or a new idea?
The problem with that is that the market is sadly dominated by a lot of similar books – I could count on one hand the number of YA books I’ve read recently that have broken out of the mould.
And The Last Knight doesn’t really fit that mold. So I’m taking the risk that publishers won’t take. The joy of self-publishing my ebooks is that the risk is only to my reputation – not to my pocket.
Which brings me to my second reason. I’m not in this for the money. I’m not going to make my millions self-publishing. And I’m OK with that. For me it’s all about just getting my book out there. If I sell ten copies or I sell ten thousand – I don’t mind. If just one person reads and enjoys The Last Knight I’m happy.
And then we come to my third reason – control. Maybe I am a little bit of a control freak but the best part of self-publishing is that I have final say – on everything.
The cover is my choice. The book blurb says what I want it to say. I decide the price I sell it for and how I market it. And I decide what content stays and what goes.
Admittedly it means I am missing out on a professional editor (and don’t get me wrong, there have been times – about the 30th edit when I was still finding typos – when I regretted that), but it also means that I don’t have someone trying to change my idea of what the story should be. I am almost certain that had this book gone through an editor at a publishing house they would have wanted more romance. I don’t. I like it the way it is.
This book is my baby, my creation – and succeed or fail it will be down to me.
So those are my reasons. That sometimes it’s worth taking a risk, that it’s about the readers not the money, and that ultimately it’s my book, and my vision.
Don’t get me wrong, there are still moments when I wonder if I’ve made the right choice: when I look at the stigma still attached to self-publishing, or when I wonder if the book could have been improved by a professional eye. But at the end of the day I’ve taken my future, and my career, into my own hands. Succeed or fail, no one can say I didn’t try.
About The Last Knight
Seventeen-year-old Cara Page Knows what mark she’s going to get on her English test next week. She knows in three days her history teacher is going to be late because his car broke down. She knows she’s going to give the new boy a nose bleed on his first day.
She knows because every night she dreams of the future, and every day those dreams come true.
Now she’s dreaming of a boy, and a future that can’t be real. Because if it is, then everything she thought was myth and legend is actually true, and there is an evil coming that will tear the country apart.
Lance Filwer is a boy with secrets of his own, and a past full of mistakes he can’t undo. Cara is his second chance, his chance to succeed where he failed before – if only she’ll trust him enough to let him help her.
Cara needs to know what’s happening, but the answer lies in a long-forgotten past, and an ancient legend. To find it Cara will have to travel into the depths of Wales, and the heart of ancient Britain.
With Wraiths, creatures from the darkest of myths, dogging her every move, Cara knows it’s only a matter of time before they catch up with her. And, myth or not, they will kill her.
Her only hope is Lance, and the birthright she must claim, if she is to prevent the future she has foreseen.
You can buy The Last Knight on Amazon, or add it to your to-be-read shelf on Goodreads.
I signed with Turquoise Morning Press. Again!
Posted: July 3, 2013 Filed under: On the Isla's Inheritance trilogy | Tags: Isla's Inheritance, Isla's Oath, small presses, Turquoise Morning Press, writing 17 CommentsLoyal readers of my blog (ha!) will know that I always intended Isla’s Inheritance be the first book in a trilogy. There’s a three book arc, a meta-plot … and how cool is the phrase “meta-plot” anyway? I feel like I need to say it in this big, booming voice: “I have this plot, and it is meta.”
I’ve drafted the sequel to Isla’s Inheritance; it is in the beta-reading stages. Until last week I was calling the manuscript Book Two, because I am the queen of naming things and all shall bow before me. But when my amazing editor over at Turquoise Morning Press, Shelby, asked me for a synopsis for Book Two, I had to come up with a proper name. And a synopsis. Aaah! I wrote the latter, and then ran it past my Aussie Owned girls. Sharon suggested Isla’s Oath. For she is the true queen of naming things, and all shall bow before her.
Bow! *shakes fist*
Seriously, I’m pretty stoked with that. Isla’s Oath. It rolls off the tongue. (If you’re wondering, Isla is pronounced eye-la.)
I sent the synopsis to Shelby and then—be still my heart—she asked for a one-page pitch for the third book as well.
Now, book three is currently just a series of thought bubbles in my head. I have been working on a different project these last six months, because at the start of the year I’d had no joy in placing Isla’s Inheritance and, since I write so slowly, I didn’t want to spend almost a year working on the third book in a series that might never go anywhere.
Also, the plot bunnies were biting on this new idea. And you can never tell those plot bunnies anything.
But I wrote the pitch (with a working title that I’ll keep to myself for now). And THEY SAID YES!
That’s right, I now have a three-book deal with Turquoise Morning Press. I just, I can’t even … there are no words. (That’s not a problem for a writer, is it?)
The current plan is to release Isla’s Inheritance around the middle of next year, and then the subsequent two in gaps of up to six months after that. As that firms up I’ll let you guys know.
Thanks to everyone who’s supported me in this, especially my boyfriend, the evil genius, Peter; Chynna-Blue; and all of the Aussie Owned ladies. Also, to all of my friends on Twitter and Facebook, and everyone I’ve ever met. Also to people I haven’t met yet. Glomps to you all!
Finding inspiration, and ‘In Stone’
Posted: July 3, 2013 Filed under: On Books, On writing | Tags: book launch, guest post, inspiration, writing, young adult 3 Comments
Today’s post is by one of my mates from Twitter, the gorgeous Louise D. Gornall. Her debut novel, IN STONE, was released on Monday, so the first thing I wanted to say was HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY!
Massive thanks for having me on your blog today, Cass!
So, I’m here to tell you guys the inspiration behind In Stone. Of course there was music, various breath-taking landscapes and thousands of hours spent searching through pictures on Pinterest. Then there were the emails between me and my CP, as well as the countless 4am brainstorming session with my twin sister. All of these things were inspirational, and the book would have undoubtedly sunk without them. However, if I HAD to single out three things that were inspirational in the pre-writing stages of In Stone, they would be:
1. This quote from Friedrich Nietzsche: “And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
2. Then there was a conversation I saw between two agents on Twitter that amounted to ‘stakes in a story are significantly lowered when immortals are involved because immortals, after all, can’t die.’
3. And then there was the plot of The Lord of the Rings.
I’m not going to go into too much detail because I will undoubtedly—however inadvertently—end up giving away the plot of In Stone. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done that. I just wanted to tell you a little bit about how these things wormed their way into my imagination and helped me cook up a story.
So, I think the first point is pretty standard. Who doesn’t find inspiration in a good quote? This one spoke volumes to me. I’ve read a couple of academic articles that all ponder its meaning, but I took it at face value when I applied it to my plot. To me this quote says that if you’re going to hang around with bad guys, eventually some of that badness is going to rub off on you…
The second point was something I’d been thinking long and hard about for a while. I knew I wanted my MC to be an immortal, but I didn’t want my stakes to be significantly lower because of it. This conversation really got me thinking about how I could avoid compromising my stakes, and that in turn helped me to develop a huge element in my plot.
Finally, The Lord of the Rings is my favourite film of all time. I love everything about it. I would have loved to have had the balls to attempt a retelling of Tolkien’s epic tale…but I don’t. So instead I borrowed some aspects of LOTR. Location, for example. One of my favourite things about LOTR is that it is as much a physical journey as it is a mental one. Plus, you know, I’m a writer. I like to add to my characters hell whenever I can, and dumping them in unfamiliar landscapes while they had this epic task to undertake was just too perfect. And then of course, there was the idea that this one tiny thing (a ring) could cause so much trouble and make even the most loyal of people turn rogue.
…and I’m going to stop now because my spoiler senses are tingling. I’m a bit of a sponge when it comes to inspiration. I find a little bit of something in everything, but these three things were definitely responsible for shaping In Stone.
BOOK BLURB
Beau Bailey is suffering from a post-break-up meltdown when she happens across a knife in her local park and takes it home. Less than a week later, the new boy in school has her trapped in an alley; he’s sprouted horns and is going to kill Beau unless she hands over the knife.
Until Eighteenth-century gargoyle, Jack, shows up to save her.
Jack has woken from a century-long slumber to tell Beau that she’s unwittingly been drafted into a power struggle between two immortal races: Demons and Gargoyles. The knife is the only one in existence capable of killing immortals and they’ll tear the world apart to get it back. To draw the warring immortals away from her home, Beau goes with Jack in search of the mind-bending realm known as the Underworld, a place where they’ll hopefully be able to destroy the knife and prevent all hell from breaking loose. That is, provided they can outrun the demons chasing them
In Stone is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Kobo. You can also add it to your Goodreads list here.
EXCERPT
Louise. I told you she was gorgeous.
As a general rule, nobody walks the Switch on account of the overgrown nettle bushes, a pungent aroma of foot infection, and a collective fear of encountering something feral. However, the Switch shaves at least ten minutes off my journey, and lately I don’t trust the dark. I blame my encounter with the almost-corpse, two nights ago. Before then the dark was just a natural progression: something to be slept in, a different color in the sky. Now, shadows make me jump, and the dark carries a silence that makes me think of funerals. It breathes life into creatures that had always been safely contained behind a TV screen. I make my way down the Switch, striding over vicious flora and trying to ignore the occasional nip that sinks straight through my jeans.
“Hey, Beau!” A voice from behind startles me. When I turn, Gray is jogging in my direction, thwarting thorn bushes with his bare hands. “I was looking for you.”
The hairs on the back of my neck bristle. My hand is in my pocket, and my fingers are wrapped around a slender cylinder of pepper spray as he reaches me.
“Well you found me. What’s up?”
“There’s something I need to ask you,” he says sheepishly. He hammers his toe against the ground, grinding it nervously into the dirt and crushing several stems of dandelion into gold dust. He giggles; it’s a soft, sweet sound that suffocates my hostility. He reminds me of Mark moments before he’d asked me out on our first date. Maybe this guy could be the one to liberate me from my social network sabbatical. Maybe my slightly-too-heavy eyeliner and my reputation as the mortician’s daughter hasn’t freaked him out.
“Really?” Surprise raises my pitch. “What’s that?” The pepper spray is abandoned in my pocket.
“Where’s the knife?” he replies, snatching my throat and slamming my back up against the concrete wall. It’s so forceful, so hard, that my spine ripples. Red flashes across my vision. The muscles in my neck go slack, and my head flops forward. He stabs his thumb up under my chin, forcing me to look him in the eye. His eyes are like the moon; cold, giant circles of icy-silver. But a change in his eye color is nothing in comparison to the change happening on either side of his head. I don’t understand it. It makes me wonder, briefly, if what I’m seeing is a side effect of the migraine pills Leah slipped me at lunch. Gray is growing horns. Giant grey horns that slide out of the side of his skull and then curl like springs around his ears. They’re animal.
Rhyming for Ull, and a plea to vote
Posted: July 2, 2013 Filed under: On Books | Tags: aussie-owned, contests, poetry 2 Comments
I mentioned the other day that I was part of Team Ull. If you didn’t see the post you might want to have a look, because otherwise the rest of this won’t make much sense. Go on, I’ll wait…
I was struggling a bit with what I could contribute to our little Nordic cheersquad. I wasn’t able to contribute amazing graphic design skills (K. A. Last has that well and truly covered!), but I have contributed something else.
Limericks.
Yeah, you heard me. Limericks. That ancient art of Nordic poetry*.
So here are my four limericks, again turned into images by the aforementioned K, for your amazement … or amusement. I don’t mind which.
All I ask is that you CLICK HERE and vote for Ull. Go on, click it! Kthxbai!
* Just go with it.
Brake and accelerate: writing advice from Chuck Wendig
Posted: June 30, 2013 Filed under: On writing | Tags: Chuck Wendig, editing, pacing, writing Leave a commentOne of the things I struggle with as a writer is pacing. My first book needed major editorial surgery—after pointy-edged feedback from various folks, whom I owe for their insight and honesty—before I was able to get it right. It was less a problem of exposition in my case but of description. I was describing a lot of things, but many of them were the wrong things. What a room looked like, rather than what the character was feeling. Boring stuff, not the juicy stuff a reader really wants to know. Yawn.
So when Chuck Wendig posted his latest advice blog post, 50 Rantypants Snidbits Of Random Writing & Storytelling Advice, this one particularly struck me.
Know what speeds your story up and what slows it down. Dialogue is lubricant: frictionless. Description is grit: friction-filled. Action is a coked-up jackrabbit; exposition is a tired sloth. Short chapters are a bottle rocket; long chapters are a big boat. A story is the slowness of alcohol with the swiftness of meth; sometimes a story needs oxygen to breathe. Sometimes a story needs oxygen to light things on fire. Tension/recoil. Momentum/restriction. Green light. Red light.
Because I love writing dialogue, now I suspect I’ll need to guard against going too far the other way—too fast instead of too slow. (Of course, this is a problem to deal with when you’re editing, not drafting. When you draft, just get it down any way it falls out of your hands or mouth.)
Anyway, follow Chuck Wendig’s blog. Even if profanity offends you (and, believe me, he doles that out like Halloween sweets), follow his blog. He’s cussing you out for your own good. :p
Routine as an aid to writing
Posted: June 28, 2013 Filed under: On writing | Tags: Isla's Inheritance, music, Thursdays Children, writing 10 Comments
(This is a Thursday’s Children post, but I’m posting it Friday morning. Hey, it’s still Thursday somewhere in the world!)
The stereotype of a writer at work is often that of a person with a laptop in a coffee shop, observing the clientele and sipping their latte as they tap away at the keyboard. I am not that writer. I am getting better at tuning out background noise—I have a preschooler, after all—but I’m only really able to write under those circumstances when I’m really in the zone. On a normal day it’s a struggle, and I usually only write once my son is in bed and the TV is off.
Until recently, I also had a housemate. His computer was in the same space as mine and he was mad keen on World of Warcraft—so while I prefer to write without music I used to fire up whatever was on the hard drive and put headphones on, to block out the sound of orcs being slain or whatever he was doing at the time. I didn’t usually need to have the music up loud, but just had it on as white noise.
The thing is that for a while there was only one album on my hard drive. I don’t like to use the CD player in the computer because it’s old and sounded like a jet engine preparing for takeoff (even through the headphones). I could have copied some other music onto the hard drive to have it available, but I never got around to it and, after a while, playing that particular album was habit-forming.
And that is why I can’t hear the violin at the start of the orchestral version of I’m in a Cage by Tim Minchin (from Tim Minchin and the Heritage Orchestra) without my brain shifting gears into writing mode. I wrote my first two books—Isla’s Inheritance and its sequel—to this music. I’m hesitant to describe the album as the actual soundtrack to those books, because the music isn’t actually related to the story (I didn’t write a comedy, for a start)—but the album was the soundtrack to my writing.
My current work-in-progress is mostly being written to the blissful sounds of a quiet house. I did experiment with some other CDs (played in the CD player—I’m so old-fashioned), but none of them grabbed me. It seems I can only write to silence or Tim Minchin.
Hey, whatever works, right?
Do you have particular music you play to get yourself in the mood to write, or other routines that you always follow? Do you struggle without them?
Click here to see this week’s other Thursday’s Children blog posts.
Pippa Jay talks about tortured heroes and her new sci-fi release, ‘Gethyon’
Posted: June 26, 2013 Filed under: On Books | Tags: blog hop, book launch, contests, guest post 3 Comments(Note from Cass: As I’m drafting this I’m two-thirds of the way through one of Pippa’s other books, Keir. This lady’s got GAME, my friends!)
I love tortured heroes and heroines. All of mine are tormented in some way, whether mentally or physically, and if I can torture them a little a lot more, then all the better. They carry scars inside and out. Burdens of guilt and regret, for things they could have changed, and those they couldn’t. They not only have to face the fears and terrors from their past, but accept that the people who come into their lives and attempt to win their hearts can see beyond that damage to the soul inside.
As well as loving to write them, I love to read them. So I thought I’d share two of those who helped to shape my own young hero, Gethyon.
The first is a certain farm boy from the desert planet Tatooine. I saw Star Wars: A New Hope televised when I was just eight, and instantly developed a crush, as well as switching from writing fantasy to sci-fi. Poor Luke, orphaned and stuck on a world he describes as ‘if there’s a bright center to the universe, you’re on the planet that it’s farthest from’, desperate to join the rebellion and fight with his friends. A bit bratty? Well, maybe. But in quick succession he loses his home and the only family he’s known to the Empire, gets called short by the princess he wants to rescue, sees his mentor killed, gets sent to a mud-hole of a planet to train and finds out he has to face Vader to complete it. On top of that he learns the second most evil entity in the universe is Daddy! It just gets worse as he finds out his princess is actually his sister, and the Emperor is perfectly willing to sacrifice all Luke’s friends to turn him to the Dark Side. And even as good triumphs, Luke must say goodbye to his father forever. Wow!
The second is Ged from A Wizard of Earthsea, a fantasy story by Ursula Le Guin. This was my assigned English read at school, aged ten, and I’ve reread it so many times since I’ve had to replace the paperback twice! Ged, or Sparrowhawk, also begins as a brat. He’s had a hard start, motherless and used as a slave by his father. He’s arrogant, sullen, and has no friends, but he has a glimmer of power and his witch aunt sets him on the road to mastery. When he saves his entire village from marauding warriors, he’s sent to the Wizard school on Roke. But in his pride and in spite, he unleashes a shadow creature that is bound to him, and could do the greatest evil through him should he become possessed. So, scarred and humbled by his ordeal, Ged seeks out to put it right, almost losing himself in the process.
Both these young heroes had such a huge influence on my reading and my writing, and still remain two of my most memorable. So I can’t deny there isn’t a trace of them in my own tortured heroes, like Gethyon.
To celebrate the release of Gethyon, I’m giving away a pretty piece of crystal, available internationally. To enter, use the rafflecopter form and tell me in the comments who’s your favourite hero, tortured or otherwise. 
GETHYON:
A YA Science Fiction Novel
Released by Champagne Books 3rd June 2013
His father died. His mother abandoned him. In the depths of space, darkness seeks him.
Abandoned by his mother after his father’s death, Gethyon Rees feels at odds with his world and longs to travel the stars. But discovering he has the power to do so leaves him scarred for life. Worse, it alerts the Siah-dhu—a dark entity that seeks his kind for their special abilities—to his existence, and sets a bounty hunter on his trail.
When those same alien powers lead Gethyon to commit a terrible act, they also aid his escape. Marooned on the sea-world of Ulto Marinos, Gethyon and his twin sister must work off their debt to the Seagrafter captain who rescued them while Gethyon puzzles over their transportation. How has he done this? And what more is he capable of?
Before he can learn any answers, the Wardens arrive to arrest him for his crime. Can his powers save him now? And where will he end up next?
Available from Burst, Kobo, Amazon UK, Amazon US or Omnilit.
About Pippa:
A stay-at-home mum of three who spent twelve years working as an Analytical Chemist in a Metals and Minerals laboratory, Pippa Jay bases her stories on a lifetime addiction to science-fiction books and films. Somewhere along the line a touch of romance crept into her work and refused to leave. Between torturing her characters, she spends the odd free moments trying to learn guitar, indulging in freestyle street dance and drinking high-caffeine coffee. Although happily settled in historical Colchester in the UK with her husband of 20 years, she continues to roam the rest of the Universe in her head. Her works have won a SFR Galaxy Award, and finalled in the Readers Favorite Award Contest and the Gulf Coast RWA Chapter Silken Sands Self-Published Star Award.
You can find Pippa at her website or blog, or on Goodreads, Twitter, Facebook or Google+.
Team Ull
Posted: June 25, 2013 Filed under: On Books | Tags: aussie-owned, contests 3 Comments
Those of you that follow the goings on over at Aussie Owned and Read will know that we’ve been chosen to advocate for Ull in the NA Crush Tourney. Ull is the hero in ST Bende’s NA romantic fantasy, Elsker. Not only is he a Norse God but he’s also a fierce Asgardian Warrior. Despite his violent job, Ull is a sweetheart when it comes to his girl, Kristia.
I confess, I haven’t actually read Elsker yet. My copy of the book is travelling across the seas (probably on some sort of heroic, Nordic adventure) as we speak. But you know how I know I like Ull? Because the author based him off Alexander Skarsgard of True Blood fame. Wooh! *fans self*
Now, because Alexander Skarsgard would quite rightly get tetchy if we started plastering his picture all over everything without permission, we’ve found a very nice looking young man (whose image was purchased legally via a stock website, in case you’re wondering), who will be playing the part of Ull for us here.
Did I mention “wooh”?!
Ull. It rhymes with drool.
(The image, by the way, was done by the amazingly talented K. A. Last.)
You may be wondering what I’m asking of you in exchange for my generous sharing of this serious hotness. Well, on Tuesday 2 July, Ull will be going head-to-head against some wimpy, girly-man named Drew (who I know absolutely nothing about!). The contest will be resolved via voting. I would have preferred some sort of Greco-Roman wrestling, but nobody asked me…
So, uh, yeah. On Tuesday, I’ll be asking you to get your click on. It won’t take long. If you want to see who is participating, click here. Just remember: vote for Ull.
(Also, if you want a chance to win an ebook copy of Elsker, click here.)
Why I Write Women’s Fiction
Posted: June 22, 2013 Filed under: On Books, On writing | Tags: book launch, guest post, writing 7 CommentsThis guest post is by another of my fellow authors over at Turquoise Morning Press, Linda Rettstatt.
When I first began to write, I knew very little about creating a novel-length story or of all the mechanics that went into writing. I also knew little about genre. I knew what I enjoyed reading, so it made sense to write that kind of story. My favorite author at the time was Elizabeth Berg. She is brilliant at writing character-driven stories of women—ordinary women—who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances. Her characters are the women who live next door or down the street, or who work in the next cubicle. But Berg takes the reader into the emotional and psychological depths of these women who, as they face life changes and challenges, make us—the readers—feel just a little less alone in our own struggles. She makes us laugh at ourselves.
Some might say that my own background as a psychotherapist who’s done a great deal of counseling with women would lend to writing this genre. And they would probably be right. I set out not to write like Berg, but to write stories about women facing challenges and possessing both vulnerability and strength. I targeted women readers and branded my writing as: Writing for Women—Stories of strength, love, humor and hope. These are the elements I consciously try to incorporate into every book. These are the elements I also find in the books of other writers whose work I admire. Berg, of course, Kris Radish, Elin Hilderbrand, Claire Cook—just to name a few. Kris Radish, a bestselling author in her own right, was kind of enough to give me a quote for Unconditional. Now that’s exciting, when one of the authors you most admire comments (positively) on your work. A true ‘squee’ moment.
Although I also write contemporary romance, when I sit down to write a new women’s fiction novel, it’s like slipping my feet into an old, familiar pair of shoes. They just fit right. Some have asked me, “What’s the difference? Your women’s fiction books often contain romance.” What can I say—I’m a romantic at heart. And romance is largely targeted at a female audience. I don’t think that placing my books under either heading locks them into one or the other sub-genre, but gives readers a hint that women are especially going to identify with the story and the characters. At least, that’s my hope.
Linda Rettstatt is an award-winning author who discovered her passion for writing after years of working in the human services field. When she’s not writing, Linda loves travel, nature photography, and figuring out what makes people tick. Her fantasy is to win the lottery, buy an old Victorian home on the eastern shore and open a writers’ retreat. While she waits for that fantasy to materialise, she continues to live and work in NW Mississippi and to write under the constant observation of her tuxedo cat, Binky.
You can find her at her website, blog or on Facebook or Twitter.
Unconditional (May, 2013, Turquoise Morning Press)
Meg Flores has it all—a loving family, a fulfilling career, and marriage to her best friend, Thomas. She is devastated when her husband announces he wants a divorce so he can pursue a relationship with his secretary—his male secretary. For Meg, the betrayal goes beyond that of a cheating husband. She is losing her best friend and the hopes for adding a child to her life.
Available from Turquoise Morning Press, or at Amazon.com, B&N.com and Smashwords.com.
On chapter titles in fiction
Posted: June 20, 2013 Filed under: On Books, On writing | Tags: chapters, Thursdays Children, writing 15 Comments
I love a good chapter title in a book. I really admire writers who manage to come up with a title that summarises the chapter, gives the reader a sense of what’s to come, but without being spoilery. I love chapter titles so much I always thought I’d use them—but when I stopped, partway through drafting Isla’s Inheritance, and thought about it, the idea of crafting the perfect chapter titles seemed as hard as crafting the perfect beginning. I seized up with panic, and decided I’d worry about it later. (That, by the way, is a great way to deal with writer’s block of any sort. Write around the problem and fix it later.)
Then I never actually got around to doing it.
My love of chapter titles started with J.R.R. Tolkien. I was given an illustrated, anniversary edition of The Hobbit when I was in late primary school. I loved that book. I’d alternate between reading about Bilbo’s adventures and staring at the illustrations of Smaug for hours. (As an aside, no one told me about the rest of Tolkien’s books till years later. I remember experiencing that wonder for the first time, the joy of discovering there are more books in a series that I never knew about. It took me a while to warm to Frodo, but he got me in the end.)
A conversation on Twitter about chapter titles the other day got me to thinking, though: do they actually make much difference to my experience as a reader? I looked at a random selection of fantasy and urban fantasy novels from my bookshelves, and the results surprised me. Because if you’d asked me who used chapter titles, I would have said fantasy writers do; urban fantasy writers don’t. I’ve read a lot of both, and that was my impression. But the facts only sort of bear that out—it’s a trend rather than a hard fact.
On the fantasy (and light sci-fi) side of the shelf, Anne McCaffrey did an assortment of things with her titles. In Dragonflight, the first in the Pern series, she actually used poems instead of chapter titles (the poems written by the harpers in the book). This was like chapter headings on steroids, because if you’ve read the book you’ll know the main character actually has to solve a riddle in one of those songs to save the day. And they foreshadowed the storyline as well. Wow. (In others of her books, though, she used traditional chapter numbers.)
David Eddings uses numbers with some titles for parts. Raymond E. Feist, Kate Forsyth and Jay Kristoff use chapter titles. Mercedes Lackey uses numbers (sometimes with titles to say whose perspective it is, much like George R.R. Martin). Terry Pratchett doesn’t even use chapters!
On the urban fantasy side, Suzanne Collins had part titles. Cassandra Clare uses chapter names. Charles De Lint and Veronica Roth use numbers.
I think the most telling thing for me is how little impression some of the titles made on me. I only read The Hunger Games and City of Bones recently, but the fact there were titles in there didn’t even register—probably because they were both such compelling stories that I was far more interested in continuing on than dwelling on the title and what it might mean. If I was at the point where I’d re-read them lovingly many times, the way I have The Hobbit and Dragonflight, perhaps they would have sunk in as I stopped to marvel.
All of which brings me to my point: what are your feelings on chapter titles in fiction (especially genre fiction)? Do you think they add to your reading experience, detract from it, or make no real difference either way? Do you even notice them?
(I need to caveat this post with the statement that I didn’t look at every book on my shelf by the named authors, just a handful. So maybe all of them do both, and it was just coincidence that the ones I picked up were of a certain style.)
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