Why I changed my title.

This graphic is very suddenly
out of date.

Hello everyone! It's been a while since I last posted, so I thought I'd pop in and let you all know what's been going on. The last couple of months have been a strange mix of waiting impatiently on other people, then furiously working for hours and hours to finish editing my latest book. Looking back, I can't decide if I should classify the months as productive or a general waste of time. Let's go with productive, since the book is finally being queried.

So, yay! After more than a year since the first word was typed, THE SOMETIMES SWORD is finally on submissions to agents. Kind of. See, it's now called THE WITCKE IN THE RUINS. Let me explain: when the book first started, the main idea was that of a young boy with a magical sword saving the day. Yeah, that's the archetype I chose to go with. The sword in question liked to disappear at the worst possible times due to an unfortunate mix of spellbinds that had been placed upon it not playing well together. However, the book has been rewritten 3 times now, altering not only the main character (adding in a female protagonist as the main POV), but also changing the nature and importance of the sword.

The sword is now a very small aspect of the book, serving only as yet another plot device to frustrate the characters by disappearing at inopportune times, hardly pivotal to the plot. Because the title was THE SOMETIMES SWORD, the current version of the book was a little confusing, as I didn't really explain much about the sword, or why it disappeared (it's now simply an experimental sword that wasn't ready for real world use yet). My beta readers kept repeating that they couldn't understand why the sword was even in the story to begin with (this was very frustrating for me, as I didn't want the sword to be important anymore, and hated the thought of making it once more a large part of the story).

After a bit of thinking, I decided that rather than expanding the sword's importance, I would simply change the title of the book, thereby changing the reader's expectations, and voila! The sword now fit in its current role, no changes needed.

But that brought a new challenge. What should I title the book after a year of calling it something else? I won't go through the whole process (I had five or six options and talked to a lot of people about them), but I eventually landed on THE WITCHER IN THE RUINS, seeing as my magic users are called witchers, and one of them happens to be in some ruins at one point. It worked, and I liked the tone the new title gave.

BUT. *record scratch*

The term "witcher" is apparently associated quite strongly with a series of books/videogames by the same name. I'd never heard of it before, but it just goes to show that the best laid plans of mice and men, and all that. After talking with a few people in the industry, I decided I'd need to change the name of my magic users and my title. Now, I already have made-up names for other familiar creatures specific to the world (such as canavar, bloedrech, etc), so it wasn't a stretch to simply alter the idea of a witch-like person into a new word. I came up with "witcke" (pronounced wit-key) with the plural of "witckas" (similar to Wicca, which works on a lot of levels). It was close enough to evoke some of the same associations as "witch", but different enough to catch the eye a little bit. Hence the new title of THE WITCKE IN THE RUINS was born.

I'll post again about the querying process here soon.

Diversity, show-don't-tell, and a query tip.

Oh wow, okay. It's been a very long time since I posted anything, but that doesn't mean I haven't been up to a lot. I've just passed the 50k mark on my current book titled Only Gingers Can Be Witches. I'm coming up on the official start of editing The Sometimes Sword version 2.0 (which some of you will remember I finished about two months ago). I'm now sitting on 4 novel-length works in my (admittedly short) writing career, which is a little mind-boggling to me. Hopefully I will be ready to begin querying The Sometimes Sword by the end of this Fall.

The Salem Witch Trials.

No, this is not going to be some intelligent study of the events that took place way back when. (See right there?  I don't even know the dates.) I just find the whole thing really interesting, so I thought I'd talk about it a little bit. Over the last week I've been writing a new book while I let The Sometimes Sword rest, and it includes a young witch character. So I thought, hey, I'll do some research on witches and witchcraft, just for kicks you know? I even went to the library with Becky. Let me tell you, I never thought I would find myself looking up witchcraft in a public place using the Dewey Decimal System. But you live and learn right?

Anyway, I found some great books, some a little more.... technically informative than I preferred (let me just stress, I am NOT a witch, you people with torches and pitch forks), but overall there was some good stuff. A lot of the books focused on presenting thoughts and evidence on two sides of the whole witchcraft issue; for, or against. I'll just say this: the Christian pastor who tried to represent Harry Potter as evil in his arguments came off looking quite a bit worse than the self proclaimed Wicca did in her arguments. But that's beside the point.

Short Story: A New Sorceress on the Council

Waldorf ran his be-ringed fingers over the rough gray stubble on his chin. Just a moment ago, it had been a rather magnificent beard, falling in waves to his belt. Scissors had made short work of it, and now he could comfortably run a razor over what remained. His magic could have done the job well enough, but after two hundred years, Waldorf knew better than to try doing anything that close to his face with magic.

Gazing into his scrying orb, the wizard examined his jaw line as the razor glided through the cream on his cheeks. How had he forgotten his weak jaw line? His neck looked like an iguana's. Shaking his head, Waldorf pushed the orb with a stream of golden magic, adjusting its angle of observation to better see what he was doing.

Waldorf could hear his wife moving about the tower beyond the stout wooden door of the washroom he stood in. Here a stair squeaked, there a cupboard opened, then shut. He glanced surreptitiously at the thick iron lock, not knowing exactly why he was nervous. He was only shaving his beard after all... perfectly normal thing to do. The blade nicked a wattle on his skinny neck, and he grimaced. Slapping a handful of greenblane on the tiny cut, he moved the razor onward, working away at the scruff on his upper lip.

Several minutes later, Waldorf looked at the shaven lizard staring back at him in the scrying orb and sighed. Something needed to be done about his hair. This dirty gray just wouldn't do. An idea occurred to him. He glanced around, located his staff, and taking it in hand pushed open the window. A brisk summer breeze blew his long wispy hair about as he thrust his head outward, peering down the long tower wall to the second window down. His wife had a magical crock of dye down there in her sewing room, and it would be just the thing. Muttering some boring words, Waldorf waited a moment before reaching out to grasp the newly arrived stone crock that floated in front of him.

Smoothing his purple robes, he lifted the lid and sniffed the clear liquid inside, recoiling slightly at the scent. Bleh. The staff went back to leaning against the wall, and the crock was set upon the wash basin as Waldorf thought about what color his hair would soon be. Purple was obvious, it matched most of his robes. But would The Council laugh? Most likely. Brown was probably the safest color, it was what he had been born with.

Snipping carefully with the scissors, Waldorf cut his white hair short, hoping that he hadn't missed any strands on the back of his head. Any chunks of uneven hair would be covered by his wizarding hat wouldn't they? Best to not worry about it.

Now the unpleasant task of applying the dye to his head. Surely it would work, even if it was a bit unconventional. After all, his wife colored her new dresses however she liked. Removing the lid with distaste for the smell, Waldorf glanced around, wondering how to best get the magic liquid from the crock to his hair. Was there a ladle? Did he just pour it on? No, that sounded rather sloppy.

In the end, he decided to simply dip his fingers in the watery substance and rub it quickly into his hair, imagining a handsome color of brown all the while. That step was very important, requiring steady, controlled thoughts to get the desired results. Waldorf closed his eyes as he worked, the acrid smell of the dye burning his nose and throat.

Finally he opened them and gazed into the scrying orb. There was still a shaven iguana gazing back him, only this time it had a mop of jet black fluff on its head. Apparently the dye was "Extra Strength" or something. Waldorf peered at the crock dismally. A label saying so would have been nice. Still, this black was better than wild white hair and a massive beard wasn't it? Looking objectively at himself once more, he supposed he did look younger, more... dashing.

Someone cleared their throat and Waldorf jumped and glanced around, startled. His wife Delores stood in the open washroom doorway, her hands planted on her ample hips. Waldorf glanced at the treacherous iron lock, then back to his wife's eyes. Oh my.

“Delores...,” he said weakly, “I didn't know you were about....”

Waldorf's wife stared at him with blue eyes like disapproving ice cubes until he wilted. Shoulders slumped, Waldorf handed her the crock of magic dye as the black faded from his white hair. Several more moments of squinted displeasure, and Waldorf's wife slowly swung the door shut, leaving the wizard once again alone in the washroom.

He knew exactly what she would have said if she hadn't chosen the "cold silence" route: 

"Walforf you old goat! Just what do you think you're doing? You look ridiculous! Is this because of that new young thing on The Council? Well I have news for you, you besotted old fool, no twenty-year old sorceress is going to look twice at the likes of you! Now fix your hair and get to work on that weak chin of yours!"

Waldorf cringed at the thought and ran his be-ringed hand over his smooth chin as he looked in the scrying orb. It looked as if he would be growing an entire beard tonight, and by the look in Delores's eyes, he was to remain here until it was finished.

The two-hundred year-old wizard snatched up his staff as he plopped onto a stool in the corner, and settled in for a very long night.

Research and Writing.

Why should writers/authors do research, and what benefits does it have? I'm sure opinions on this subject vary wildly. I wanted to give some of my thoughts, along with recent experiences while working in The Sometimes Sword.

I've never been a research buff. I've always fancied that, in Fantasy at least, the author's mind should be sufficient to provide details in the world they themselves made. (Makes sense right?) Well, not so much. recently I've been taking advantage of research more, and I wish I had started earlier. First though, let me define research, as there are two parts in my opinion. First, what most people think of: basic fact finding such as discovering the different parts of a horse's saddle, looking up what different metals were used in weapons in medieval societies, or the names of the individual pieces in a set of plate armor, etc. Second, there's the research for story, character, and setting ideas (this one is especially important).

It's true that an author can invent most anything they want to, and a really smart author can bluff their way through many details, or just make them up on the spot. Writing in extreme High Fantasy makes this easier than say, modern crime thrillers, but for those of us who want to ground our fantasy world closer to home, we need to introduce some solid facts to forge that link. For instance, back when I first started The Sometimes Sword, I knew I wanted to have a horse in there somewhere, but knew nothing about them. Not wanting to treat a horse like a motorcycle (as Howard Taylor of Schlock Mercenary fame phrases it in several Writing Excuses episodes), I had to find out something about them. What do they eat? How much do they eat? How fast can they run, and for how long? Do my characters need to worry about the cost of maintaining their mount? Do they sleep standing up or laying down? These things were important. Even though the story I was writing might have been okay without them, I knew I needed to have those details to give it a sense of reality. So I jumped on the Internet (yes, it really is that easy) and looked up a few reputable sites dedicated to caring for horses and began to read. Truth be told, it ended up being pretty dang interesting all by itself. I took some notes and added a few bookmarks.

I've done the same with pieces of armor, and terms for different weapons and styles of swords. These details, when integrated seamlessly into your story, help to flesh the world out, and give the illusion that you really know what you're talking about. After all, telling a story is all about creating illusions, because an effective one hides everything that doesn't make it into the book, along with any failings the author might have in say, horsemanship.

The other kind of research is a little more involved, and ultimately, serves a story better than fact-finding alone. I'm talking about using the world's thousands of stories as an inspiration for yours. There's a lot more of this than we realize, even from the greats: Lloyd Alexander's Horned King came from an old legend in Ireland (I think) about a spectral hunter with antlers on his head called Herne the Hunter (much of his world is loosely based on Welsh legends). Banshees in countless tales come from another set of Irish legends. Sherlock Holmes's(?) case "The Hound of the Baskervilles" is based on the legend of the Beast of Bodmin Moor. Nearly any modern witch you read about has some characteristics tie back to Black Annis, the English legend of a witch in Cornwall. (Feel free to correct me about these facts or add to them, I haven't actually done research for this blog article, pathetic I know.) J.K. Rowling with Harry Potter and Brandon Mull with Fablehaven use countless fairy tales and mythical creatures from our world to fill their own.

Don't be afraid to do some searching. Need a crazy creature to put your reader at unease? Look no further than the some of the anal-fixated monsters in South America and some of the American islands, or the old crazy stuff Japanese freak the crap out of their kids with. You can find legends about everything: kings with curses, sorcerers who turn people into animals, witches who eat children, demons in disguise, etc. Now, I'm not saying you have to lift details straight from them (though you definitely can) or that you have to base your story on an existing legend. What you can do though, is research these things to give yourself a kick in the pants, or to find something that sets a spark in your brain. When you feel completely squeezed dry of creativity, it helps to take some time looking for stories that intrigue you, then determine what qualities made them stick out, and convert them to something you can use. (I know I've always been fascinated with the old school creepy stuff, hence all the talk of witches and old Irish legends.)

I'm currently doing this for The Sometimes Sword, and I'm finding that so far it's helping to pump some excitement back into the writing process, along with informing some changes to fundamental characters. So next time you sit down to write and feel a little bored, think about doing some research to liven up your story and increase the illusion of reality.