Writing with Marian Allen

Today on dream... write... publish, I have the talented author Marian Allen, sharing her writing routine, promotional tip and her trilogy, SAGE.

Marian has many publications (just check out her author page on Amazon!), and is one of my favourite authors of short stories. Seriously, when asked about writing short story writing, I recommend Ray Bradbury and Marian Allen. So, let's get on with the interview!

Marian, what is your writing routine, and how do you entice those words to flow?

I don't have a routine; I have to grab the minutes whenever I can get them. National Novel Writing Month and Story A Day in May taught me to overcome my natural laziness and do the hard bit first: plotting. My inclination is just to write, write, write and let the plot unfold as it pleases ... until I get to the part where I have to start making decisions. Then it isn't FUN anymore. It's HARD, and I don't LIKE it! I've learned that, if I just take the time to choose a general plot arc right at the beginning, I can play the whole way through. If the plot changes, it changes, but I don't have to stop and whine just when things are starting to get interesting.

You've released quite a few books now, what do you consider an author's best promotional tool or strategy?

What sells me on an author's work is a literate blurb with at least one hooky element. If the blurb is badly worded and/or boring, I probably won't buy the book. I like to interact with writers and read at least some of their blog posts; it indicates something about the quality of their minds and their prose.

*That's so cool, I just realised  you can read minds on blogs! Wait... oh oh.

Your latest series making a splash on the internet is SAGE, please tell us a little about this series.

SAGE is really one BFF (Big Fat Fantasy) divided into three 'acts'. It took me nearly twenty years from conception to publication, in part because I kept finding agents who were interested in it. The manner of its telling is peculiar though, and they kept suggesting changes they then didn't like and dropping me. I think I went through three or four agents before I realized I'd rewritten the life out of the book and went back and rewrote it to suit my peculiar self. In the meantime, indie publishing took off, and I was lucky enough to find Hydra Publications (NOT the Random House subsidiary!), which handed me to Martha Swanson, QUEEN OF ALL EDITORS, who helped me say what I wanted to say the best way I could say it, rather than trying to 'fix' the peculiarities.

* Getting dropped by your team makes you a great candidate for Prime Minister in Australia.

  

SAGE: Usurper. Lost heir. Runaway bride. Land on the brink of civil war. All so familiar, until Tortoise -- the Divine Creature who ignores the rules of right and wrong -- challenges his fellow divinities to meddle. Suddenly, children targeted for murder are adopted, swordsmen turn into blacksmiths, and none are reliably who or what they seem.

The four Divine Animals are afoot: Tortoise, Dragon, Unicorn and Phoenix. Hold on tight.

The Fall of Onagros, SAGE Book 1.

In the first book of the SAGE trilogy, a legacy is lost, a woman vanishes into thin air, wisdom is found in unexpected places, and a man hopes to defeat a tyrant with tall tales and gossip.

Bargain with Fate, SAGE Book 2.

The mighty are helpless, the weak are strong, and a little girl clutches creatures of terror to her ragged heart.

Silver and Iron, SAGE Book 3.

The contention over the throne of Layounna is fought on strange battlegrounds: an island, a henyard, a scrivenry, a pocket, and the heart of the chief claimant.

Wow. You've got me hooked! Show us where to grab this BFF series!

The Fall of Onagros

Kindle http://bookshow.me/B00AYF6546

print http://bookshow.me/0615774474

*The Fall of Onagros is FREE on July 16-17!

Bargain With Fate

Kindle http://bookShow.me/B00CLUUO9O

print http://bookshow.me/0615818323

Silver and Iron

Kindle http://bookshow.me/B00D2GKXGK

print http://bookshow.me/0615818315

That's awesome, thanks so much for sharing with us today Marian! If you'd like to find Marian to learn more about her books and become a fan (but not one of those creepy ones... although, she'd probably have fun turning that into a story!), here's some links:
Blog:  www.marianallen.com
Twitter:  @marianallen
Facebook:  Marian Allen Author
Google+:  Marian Allen Author

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Creating Multiple Plot Lines

So many characters and each believe they are the true hero.

Via: Screen Rant

Most stories follow a protagonist, or hero, through their journey to overcome adversity, evil, boredom, loneliness, or whatever it is they are up against. However, some stories need more characters and story lines to cover the epic plot.
Multiple plot lines are common in fantasy. Anyone who's read George R R Martin's Game of Thrones (or seen the tv series) will know there are many key characters in this novel and each of them has their own story arc or plot line. If your story has many occupants, here's some tips:

• Each character has their own story. Don't just throw in characters to enhance your protagonist's story. These characters have had their own paths leading up to this point. Remember, every character, even the busty barmaid serving mead to your luckless young hero, thinks this is THEIR story.
• Consider POV. Most novels with multiple characters use third person point of view (POV) (this is where you use 'he, she, they, it...' to explain what characters are doing). This is because if you speak from many character's POV, you can easily confuse your reader. There is a trend in YA fiction to use first person POV (using 'I, we...'), this is to give the reader a feeling of closeness to the protagonist. You can still achieve this closeness by using third person omniscient POV, this is where we can hear the thoughts of characters and therefore understand their motivations. Most complicated plots, such as multiple story arcs, will use third person POV varying between limited (watching the characters, we're not in their head) and omniscient POV. For more on POV, this site explains it well: The Three Points of View in Writing.
• Epic antagonist. If there are many different characters interweaving, you'll want to separate them into teams of light and dark, good and evil or blue and red (if you don't want to suggest one team has more justification than another). Your characters that lead these teams must be epic. If we have many characters telling stories in this novel, you want the antagonist to stand out amongst them all. I believe his story arc is even more important than the hero's, because it is the antagonist who drives the narrative. The best advice I've heard is to remember, a good antagonist believes HE is the protagonist.
• Voices must be LOUD. I don't mean every character shouts, but each character must have a very distinct voice, to stand out and be heard amongst the crowd of characters. Great writers make every character distinct by their voice, even if they all look exactly the same (simply changing hair colour, gender or size is not a good way of making your character an individual). You can achieve this by making sure you know each character and their motivations well. Do up extensive character profiles, meet their family, live in their skin. For more on the importance of individuality of characters, you can see this post: James Baldwin and Character Who-ness.
• Each story has its own time-frame. If you have multiple story arcs in your epic novel, don't start them all at the beginning of the novel and end them all at the close of the book. Each character's story will begin when they have their own inciting incident, and they may end much sooner than the overall story (especially if they die), or they may continue their own quest into book two. By giving each story arc its own point of rising climax, you give the reader more places to feel the rising tension and more small lulls where they can relax (momentarily).

It's a big job keeping track of many plot lines at once, especially if you're writing the epic novel as a collaboration with other writers. In my next post, I'll show you various techniques for keeping track of multiple plot lines and story arcs.

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W is for World Building Workshop

Build an amazing world for your story

Today I'm sharing a creative writing workshop I run for kids. It's on World Building and this is an important part of science fiction and fantasy stories. You can follow along and write up your own responses, or you can use the worksheet we use in class. It can be downloaded and printed from here:

World Building PDF

I've broken this workshop into two parts, the lists and the drawing. You can do either first, I love the lists, my kids will probably want to draw theirs first. 

 Step 1: The Written World Description

• Binaries and Parallels - What's the same as our world and what's different?

• Temperature - Is it below freezing or really humid? The temperature of your world will affect the type of vegetation you have, and even the action that can take place (imagine The Wizard of Oz without a tornado). Is your weather seasonal or is it always like this?

• Landscape - When your character stands still, what can they see and how far can they see? Can they see Mountains, ranges, hills or a horizon?

• Ground cover - Dirt, rocks, pebbles, sand, grass or snow? How does it feel to walk under your character's feet? What sound is made when they walk on it?

• Vegetation - Tree varieties, weeds, shrubs, edible fruits, mushrooms and flowers. This can create scents and colour to your story. Plants are used for more than shelter and food. Sometimes they can be medicines and sometimes they are just for enjoyment. Do your characters like to pick flowers? Or maybe there's a plant like tobbacco that they smoke? And maybe it's not good for them and they find out they could die from it. Maybe some yummy looking berries are poisonous.

Now beyond the ground.

• Laws of Physics - Will your land obey them? Is there gravity? How might this affect your characters?

• Sun/Moon/Stars - What is the natural light like or what alternatives are there for light? Does sun or moon or stars play a role in your character's religion?

• Civilisation - Is your world built up or entirely natural? Are there pathways, roads, houses, airports, industry?

Step 2 - Drawing

• Draw rough maps of the entire area and show how your different locations meet up.
• Draw up an outline of each town, where are the homes, the shops, the tavern, etc.
• Then go wild and paint or sketch lots of views of your world, be as artistic as you want!

Want to visuaslise your world but don't have crayon skills?

• Make a virtual world in a game like Sims3 or Second Life or perhaps you can suggest one?
• Search online, steal National Geographic magazines and travel brochures. Cut out all the elements that match your world and glue them onto a large sheet of cardboard. Layout the pictures to align with your map, showing where the rainforest is compared to the Castle and what you pass when you travel from one to the other. You can keep this by your desk while you write.

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F is for Fantasy Writing

Tonight I'm blogging from my hotel room, while away at a conference. My internet is a little dodgy, but I'll try and get around to everyone's blog as soon as I can.

My first Fantasy novel I read reluctantly, but then fell in love and had to read the whole series. That was Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials.

The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman

Then, for my first NaNoWriMo novel, I decided to try and write a fantasy novel, and now I'm editing The Costume Maker. One of the tools I'm using is the book Adventures in Fantasy:

I blogged about this helpful book in A is for Amazing Writing Books.

A key element of fantasy is magic. Here are some interesting things I learned about magic:

• Magic must have limits. You can't just whip out a wand to solve every problem. I like books that have a magic that first appears useless, but later its worth will save the day.
• There must be rules for magic. There must be costs. Many fantasy stories will show magic as physically draining to the user. In The Picture of Dorian Grey, the protagonist manages to stay young, while his portrait ages instead. But the young man gives up his soul for this magic. The price must be high, otherwise the protagonist would not question if it were necessary to use magic.
• Often magic will appear in the 'other world'. This is the magic's natural setting - an enchanted land. This is changing though. With Paranormal novels becoming so popular, often contemporary protagonists posses some magical gift withing our everyday urban setting.
• Magic is not good or bad, only the way it's employed will decide if it is white or black magic.
• Magic is old. Traditional 'other worlds' in fantasy are pre-industrialization. Meideval times host dragons, and Harry Potter, although contemporary, goes to a school in a historical building where old dusty bound books rule over technology.

For some more information (from people who know a lot more about fantasy than me) check out these sites:

www.sfsite.com/columns/amy26.htm

www.writing-world.com/sf/index.shtml

The next fantasy novel I'll read is:

Switched by Amanda Hocking

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