Many thanks to author and blogger Julie M. Tuttle for this wonderful opportunity! Check out my interview with her if you haven’t yet!
Tag: Publication process
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Merry Writer Podcast
Many thanks to my fellow authors and bloggers Rachel Poli and Ari Meghlen for featuring me on the Merry Writer Podcast! If you haven’t yet, listen as I discuss with Rachel how I came to be a writer:
The episode is on Podbean too.
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to listen to their other episodes!
And be sure to keep an eye out on my poetry and short story pages for upcoming links to the anthologies Fae Dreams and Nightmare Whispers: Madness Echoes from Fae Corps Inc! They’re due to come out at the end of the month! Some links are already available for preorder!
Interesting to note that some of my work that will appear in those anthologies are tied with earlier days of writing. “Crossing the Estuary” was originally a high school creative writing assignment I’d thought lost but rediscovered. “Candlelight” was an assignment in college where we had to write a poem in the style of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” following specific guidelines (yesterday was the anniversary of Poe’s death). I recall I actually started writing it on Halloween!
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Questions of Narrative and Tense
One has a story in mind and wants to tell it well. It then becomes a question of how you want to tell it. I’ve learned there’s more than one way to write a novel. In fact there are many, and like all details run the risk of being overthought or overdone. Sometimes one can get so worried about them it leads to writer’s block and one cannot move forward, sort of like when choosing a book title or character name. These are among the first details to choose at the beginning. Yet at other times, they seem to manifest themselves and/or change in the process.
One of the first questions that comes to mind is whether to write in first person or third. I find it often depends on the type of story being told. When writing Mystical Greenwood, I chose to write in third person as I felt it was the right way to tell a fantasy story set in an imaginary world no reader would have personally lived in, but could still observe and imagine. But there are many subdivisions of third person, and that was not so easily defined for me.
I flirted between third person limited and subjective. Subjective is trying to convey more than one character’s thoughts and feelings at the same time, whereas limited focuses on chiefly one character. After sending Mystical Greenwood to Mockingbird Lane Press, at my editor’s request I made it third person limited throughout because there were originally some scenes with slight POV shifts that caused confusion. While some chapters and scenes are told from the perspective of characters other than Dermot, and there are scene breaks and a change to another character’s POV in others, I still tried to limit it to one character at a time.
I could’ve written in third person objective, but that would’ve left out every character’s feelings and thoughts, which I felt could detach readers from the narrative. Third person omniscient is often used for high and epic fantasy, where all character’s thoughts and feelings are presented. That can sometimes make it hard for readers to attach themselves to the story, as there would be too many characters to choose from to bond with while reading. But that certainly doesn’t mean it can’t work.
I’m presently trying I-narrative with the neglected pets story. I feel first person works best with realistic fiction (as it’s a setting readers and writers live in and understand), mysteries, and thrillers. I would like to try an epistolary format (telling a story in the form of diary entries and letters), perhaps for historical fiction. Some authors have alternated between third and first within the same book (using the latter for their protagonist), which I might also try. News articles could also be used in epistolary stories, and be another way to alternate. Other writers have changed narrative within a series, like the late Stephen J. Cannell did with the Shane Scully books.
With first person, one can also make it plural or use an unreliable narrator. Some novels try to replicate the thought-process, or stream of conscious; there third or first could work, but I personally find it hard to follow. Some classic books have had chapters or scenes written in the format of plays; another thing I could try.
I should also mention second person narrative: “You”. It’s rarer in literature, as is writing in future tense. Most stories are in past tense, but some have been written in present, just like plays and screenplays. But there have been some well-told stories written using one or both, most famously perhaps Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss. It’s always good to experiment and try new things with writing. Writer should use whatever they feel is best for your story.
Further Reading
- Writing in Third Person Omniscient vs Third Person Limited.
- Aldridge, Ally. Point of View.
- Wolf, Kalesjha H. First Person vs. Third Person.
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Kindle Users, It’s Finally Here!
That’s right! Mystical Greenwood is now available in Kindle from Mockingbird Lane Press on Amazon AND Amazon UK!
As a friendly reminder, you can reserve the paperback through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. If you’re in Britain, it’s also available through Amazon UK and Foyles Bookstore. Additional outlets can be found for both versions via Goodreads.
You can also try ordering directly at your local bookstore. That can help get it on shelves for other readers to find. If you belong to a book club, I hope you’ll recommend it to your fellow members! Your reviews will help me and this book immensely. Spread the word!
And don’t forget, if you become a fan, you can order merchandise with the cover art at Deviant Art!
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Order Mystical Greenwood Now!
Yes! I’m very happy to announce that the paperback version of Mystical Greenwood is now available on Amazon!
Mockingbird Lane Press will also soon be offering an e-book version (which can be downloaded to Kindle and Nook)! It should be available in a couple weeks.
Mystical Greenwood will also soon be offered on Barnes & Noble.
I hope you enjoy it! Please read, review (be honest), and help spread the word!
The cover art is also available on Deviant Art! If you’re a fan, you can now buy merchandise!
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Count your Lucky Length
Often when works of fiction are discussed, word and/or page count comes up. When you see books on a shelf, one of the first things you’ll notice, apart from the author’s name and book title on the spine, is how thick or thin they are compared to each other. Some people, like J. R. R. Tolkien, enjoy reading long stories. Others prefer shorter works. What is it about length? Does it matter?
Often when you look at a book’s title page, there will often be a subtitle saying “A Novel” or something similar. “A Novella” and “A Novelette” appear to be less common. Instead, perhaps you might see “A Short Novel”. Furthermore, when it comes to defining types of writers we have novelist, poet, essayist, playwright, short story writer, and screenwriter. There are no set terms that I’m aware of for writers of novellas or novelettes. I sometimes feel novel is an umbrella term under which any fictional work longer than a short story can be labeled. Often, it seems word count is what it really comes down to, as I’ve seen so many sets of word count ranges that are used to define these works. Or is it?
In my senior year at St. Mary’s College, I took a high level creative writing class called “The Novella”. Some of the books we read felt like novels or long short stories. We each had to write a novella, and I started writing that story about neglected pets. It fit into a novella word count range. However, my classmates and the professor felt it should be expanded into a novel. I admit before that class, I’d first imagined it as a novel. Perhaps a work of fiction is what the author believes it to be, and subsequently calls it.
Writing for the stage and screen can be more restrictive, though it’s by page count rather than words. Once at a meeting of the MWA Annapolis chapter, it was stated a page of a screenplay equals a minute of screen time. Thus, an ideal film script should be 100-120 pages. A TV episode script would be 50-60 pages. Plays too it seems have page count limits these days. Audiences, I can understand, would rather not sit in a theater all day.
Some classic plays and films are long. Hamlet is usually abridged when staged or filmed. The 1996 unabridged film version lasted over four hours. Sometimes I wonder what Hamlet’s stage and screen history would’ve been like had Shakespeare written it as two plays, as he did with Henry IV (which has appeared onscreen only as TV films). I also wonder what the movie Gettysburg would’ve been like had it been a TV miniseries as initially planned.
Charles Dickens’s works were first published as a serial (like novelettes or novellas) before being printed as complete books. The serial versions were cheaper, making his novels available to the masses, whom, with a cliffhanger, would be enticed to buy the next installment. The novels of the Brontë sisters were published in “volumes,” but like Dickens’s books, they are only published as complete works nowadays. Some people feel novellas and novelettes have difficulty getting published these days, and if they do, they are usually combined with similar works.
In the end, it all comes down to the writer. It’s up to the author whether they want to define their work as novels, novellas, novelettes, short novels, or short stories. Length is applied in the public consciousness, but maybe it doesn’t have to. Does length and its description on the title page affect the customers decision to purchase or pass? What do you think?
Further Reading
- Meer, Syed Hunbbel. Differences Between a Short Story, Novelette, Novella, & a Novel.
- Playwriting 101. Chapter 1: The Play’s the Thing.
Andrew McDowell 