Before I get started with today’s blog, I just wanted to give a quick apology for my recent absence for the last two weeks. I had to recertify on my VCP certification and I had to focus on that first and foremost … at least for those couple weeks, but now that’s finished and I’m back to writing and blogging once again.  

Before I started writing I’d always thought this was a pretty straight forward concept. If you’re a writer then you right for a certain genre and that was it, but once I started writing I realized this was much more complex then I’d ever imagined. Hell, I wasn’t even aware of all of the subcomponents of Sci-Fi and Fantasy until I had to self-publish my first book, but then I’ve never been much for titles and names of things unless it truly was needed for the function. Maybe that’s my Geek/IT mentality, but either way I learned there was more to this then I’d ever thought.

Some good examples of this are The Dark Elf Series, The Dresden Series, The Demon Accord Series, Natural Consequence Series or The Foul Mouth Series (definitely worth checking out by the way, don’t let the bad cover artwork throw you off). These series either fall into the realm of Fantasy, Urban Fantasy or Epic Fantasy for most readers, but you will still hear some readers complain that these stories are more Dark Fantasy or Erotic Fantasy (depending upon which series above we are talking about). What I especially love about these series is that there is a certain grittiness and realism to them. There are bad things that happen, there are difficult sexual situations/relationships and a certain worldliness to the stories themselves. These stories aren’t the Twilight Series books (Doesn’t mean I don’t like the Twilight Series because I do) or Teen/Young-Adult stories that keep away from some of the darker evils. It’s like Never Ending Story compared to Ironman the movie. Hmm I’m still trying to think if I can use that simile or not. Anyway if you’ve read any of the above I imagine you understand what I’m trying to say.

When I wrote Flight I wanted readers to really hate the Tuonellians. I wanted you to wish for the evil Clerics of Loviatar to be killed. But to get readers to this point where they think a person is so evil that they need to die can be difficult. I’ve seen movies where the bad guy really wasn’t bad. I could have cared less if he died or not. Even possibly I could have wished he defeated the good guy in the film. I didn’t want that to be in question in my own story, so when I wrote about the Tuonellian atrocities they had to really be evil. Like the worst German SS troops fornicating with demons while trying to take over the world, while at the same time not having a slasher or horror story. I wanted readers to feel the Werewolves’ pain and anguish as the Horned Demons tore apart the young. I wanted readers to see Startüm defeat these terrible creatures because it was ridding the world of evil incarnated.

This turned out to be easy and not so easy of a task.

It’s hard to write about dark subject and not dip into horror. I think the distinction comes down to the level of detail and inner dialog you include in the story. It’s like a sex scene and fading to black instead of going through with the whole sexual intercourse. One is Adult Fantasy and one is Erotica, although I will say that Natural Consequence Series does this unbelievably.

After getting some feedback on Flight and the story line from some people who find the evil parts difficult to read, there was a part of me that wondered if I shouldn’t have left some of the detail to the story out. It was something I discussed with friends who are avid readers of Sci-Fi and Fantasy to get their opinions and a diverse group. At the end of it all I felt like I needed to have that in the story. It is the basis for the hate of the Tuonellians, even though I pay for it sometimes in negative reviews from people who find some of the scenes too sad to read. At the same time, I will probably not dip down that low into the evil again throughout the rest of the series. It will always be there with the Tuonellians and I will refer to atrocities that drive the heroes in their fight. I’m sure there will be more horrors that I’ll have to put into the stories, but I’ll be more careful to the extent of how much detail I give it. Even then I’m sure I’ll push away some readers, but in my current universe and how I tell a story and look at a scene, this detail is important to me.

It’s just something that I thought warranted a conversation on and something each of us authors must think hard upon when we are putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys).   


Some writers would like to say that they only write for themselves and this is there artistic expression, all of which is well and good. For most of us indie writers, we want to get our books out and share our story and ideas with our readers and build a following. For those of us who look at writing in this way, I believe it is important to keep in mind your audience. Whenever you explore those questionable story lines, whether it's evil, sex or violence then you will get be opening yourself up to criticism. Criticism is not bad, it can actually be very helpful depending on what it is, but no matter what I would say it's important to be in touch with your intended audience and that no matter what, this awareness "will" and to a point "should" affect your writing style.  

I just got back from my business conference late Friday evening. The location of the conference was quite interesting. It was like stepping back in time to the 1950’s. The conference was in support for the debate teams from the DOD European Schools and the lodgings were in the middle of the country. It reminded me of the lodging in the movie “Dirty Dancing” but not as nice. Normally I tend to have my evenings free on these things and I had expected to get some good writing time in, but this conference ended up going until 2100 hundred hours for most of the nights and was steady enough that I really never had any quiet time to get some solid writing in. I did get some time throughout the day to piddle around with the new chapter I started, which was actually very nice. I should know better by now, but every time I think I’m going to do a quick page or two chapter to just bring in some point within the story it ends up being much more entailed then I’d initially planned.

I think this happens because of a particular technique I enjoy using. I call it using supporting characters to tell pieces of the main characters story. In this way you can get a different perspective, bring out some of your supporting characters more fully and it allows you to save the main character focus for specific things, while still getting the overall story out that you want.

When I’m reading a book I enjoy a number of different type of perspectives when it comes to telling a story. One of my favorite has always been a first-person-discovery perspective when it comes to the main hero/heroine, but from a friend of mine named Shannon I’ve learned that many people find this first-person-discovery perspective boring or simple old school. Now I understand there are all kinds of readers out there that enjoy a bunch of different types of writing styles, but after asking around with the people I work with on what perspectives they enjoyed it seemed like Shannon had a good point. Many people like a point-of-view that jumps around to different characters during the story. This works for me too and I’ve found it can be a great tool to use for enhancing the story of the main character. Sometimes it’s amazing just how much these little asides can help the overall story flow and filling in the gaps.

I have another friend who really enjoys that first-person-discovery perspective like I do. Luckily this style that I’m writing in still gives a flavor of that too. I think this is a good way to expand your audience and make both types of readers happy. In Destiny I needed to introduce the world of Irlendria, which meant bringing to life the world and new supporting characters with their own story to tell. Also, another point brought up by a few friends of mine and from some of the websites of other writers I enjoy checking is that people love discovering the world that you’ve created. For this, I like to think about JRR Tolkien and the Lord of The Rings and how he introduced his world and races. Although I’m not spending as much time on the landscape of the world like he did in the Middle Earth, I am introducing aspects of the world through the interaction of the new races and the supporting characters that I am introducing to the story.

Like I said in earlier posts, the book is turning out longer then I initially expected. There is a lot of story to tell and I hate to skip through important parts just to get to the point where I’ve planned to end the story at. There is just so much to tell. I’ve have done my best to focus on the exciting parts of what’s going on within the world. None the less, time must flow especially with the time difference between Earth and Irlendria. One day on Irlendria is a day and a half long on Earth, which means the time between worlds will grow and affect the overall story. Another component that I have to keep in perspective.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I’ll be back on my normal schedule next week. Well, except for the holiday on Monday. I hope everyone enjoys there long weekend. 

I’m still recovering from coming down with a cold from last weekend’s trip to Heidelberg Castle. For some reason I’m the only one who brings gloves with me when it’s snowing outside, which means when my wife and daughter start to freeze I’m the only one without any gloves then. That and for some reason we always love to travel in the middle of a sleeting blizzard. It’s not smart, but just how things turn out sometimes. Either way we got some great shots of the castle and the town and had a nice time, albeit while freezing our asses off.

Even though I’m heading out on a business trip this week, it’s close enough to the office that I can bring all of my gear to write and study as needed. I plan to hopefully knock out another chapter in the next few days.

After releasing a book each author then faces the next step, which is the proverbial reviews that will be coming in. For any writer reviews are necessary. Not just because it helps to broaden the audience to your book and help with sales, but they also can help an author get the necessary constructive criticism that each and every one of us need to become a better writer. While you’ll get those true reviews from readers who truly read your story because it peaked their interest and they are into the genre that you’re writing about, you will also get those reviews from people who either hated your writing style, storyline, choice of genre or are fellow writers who have decided to critique the hell out of your writing style. For both types of reviews it’s important to take into consideration the feedback that you are being given.

It’s important to know what your audience likes to help improve your overall writing style and storytelling ability. I’ve heard some writers scoff at this idea, believing that their writing is an art that is only for them and if people happen to like their work then that’s just a plus. While that’s fine and dandy for some people, for the rest of us who are trying to be successful and make a living at writing, I think it’s important to know what your audience likes. It’s always important to keep an open mind and look for the general flow of what people are interested in and see how that fits with your overall story that you have planned out. Sometimes there are small tweaks that you can do to really improve the interest and detail of your book, while other times it’s important to keep to the story that you have planned out in your head. No matter how you do it, there is a delicate balance to knowing when to tweak your style and when not to.

Another very important aspect of reviews is getting the criticism that will make your story and writing style better. Writing is a constant learning process and one that is very difficult to get negative feedback on until we release it to the public. Try as we might, it is a rare friend that can care enough to read your story, who are into your genre and will honestly tell you what they like and don’t like. When a writer does find a friend who can do those very difficult things, it’s also the rare writer who can take the criticism with an open ear and not argue their case for why they did what they did and not turn that one helpful friend off from ever telling them again what they don’t like about their story. Unfortunately that means for most of us we will not get that very important negative criticism until our book is released to the public. It’s important to know when and when not to listen to what is being said. Sometimes the negative feedback is simply that the reader was not into the story you were writing. They might have thought you were writing something like The Twilight Series when you were writing a story like the Underworld Series. Those negative reviews are fine to get and new readers who are looking at your book will not take that as a negative unless they are not into the style of story you’re writing about. Some of the normal negative reviews that you get might be simply pointing out some of the flaws to your story line or improvements that you might need to make to your writing style.

Reviews like these are good to listen to and you can even go back to your current story and make those changes relatively quickly if they are minor or learn from those mistakes for the next book in your series. Sometimes you can even make sure you close some of the questionable plotlines that were addressed in book one by how you enhance your storyline in the next book, which is something that I’ve been doing with Destiny. I was hit by some people who didn’t like Startüm’s harem of women in book one, even though I pointed out that most of his students had been men and this was one of his first classes of mostly women. Also I had some people question how this new made-up religion could be so popular when he wasn’t rich from the inflow of money like most churches in the real world. Both of these things were already in my story and explainable, I just hadn’t developed them within the storyline. In Destiny, I make sure I address some of these issues to make my story more solid and fill in the gaps that some reviewers tagged as not making complete sense.

Lastly you will have fellow writers who see that you are doing well and will try to bash your book as much as possible to hurt your ability to get knew readers. Some of these writers will give you nothing to work with, but just simply say something like “Meh… Could have been better” and rate you one or two stars, while others will pick apart everything about your story that they didn’t like. While much of this is probably nothing that you should worry about, there are some points of truth that you can do something to fix. Usually you can make these changes on the fly for your ebook and have those corrections in place two hours later or at least by that night. If someone points out that you overused a work in one location or that you said an engine block for a car was the wrong size in the real world. This feedback, although it was said to hurt your story, can be used to make your story that much stronger with a quick edit. In some ways having these writers pick at your story is helpful to the overall quality of your writing and is something you can use to critique your next book before it’s released. Also, you can always make a comment to the review and point out that this review’s self-interest might be in question due to their book being in competition with your own. So you get free editing help and a way to discredit their review at the same time.

Don’t get me wrong. It still sucks when you have fellow writers bashing on your book to tear you back down, but in a way (at least for the ones who critique your storyline to death) they are helping you improve your style and product by giving you the information you need to fix your current book and to help close the plotlines in your next book.  

It really doesn’t matter the genre of the story you‘re writing, because if you’re not 100% accurate with any information you’ve written within your book that someone can check you on then at some point in time you will have some reviewer come along and slam you for the mistake. Besides the possibility of being called out on by a reviewer (in my experience usually another writer), I think it’s overall important to have as much accurate information for the quality of the story itself.

There will always be some people who will tear apart your book. None the less I think it’s somewhat easier to accept when someone is just commenting on a storyline or I was caught by this by surprise on Flight when I made a mentioned a 10 cylinder Ford engine at one point of time in the book. Relatively quickly I had a writer point that out in a review that they did of my book that this was not accurate. Although a part of me laughed at having something like this pointed out in a book with demons, werewolves, clerics and paladins, I quickly made the change and updated the incorrect information. None the less it was still upsetting to me that I’d missed something, which became even worse when it was caught and pointed out. All in all I figure that wasn’t bad for my first novel, but it has made me very aware for verifying the information in book two.

In Destiny I have a lot of Military terms that are coming into play. Fortunately for me I am familiar with much of the terminology soldiers’ use from my time in uniform and my current job, which covers Army and Marine jargon for the most part. Of course there are some nuance differences, but for the most part they are relatively interchangeable. Unfortunately this doesn’t help me much when it comes to Navy terms. I’ve been doing my best to get some research done on the subject, but it has been hard to find a good site that lists the true Navy jargon that sailors use day-to-day. To assist me with this I just recently had a retired Commander send me a paper he did in the late 80’s that covers the actual jargon used by sailors. Also, he’s a nice enough guy that I can run terminology that I want to use in the book by him for him to help me tweak.

For some non-military people this might seem like an inconsequential point, but that is where they would be wrong. There are so many ex and active service members out there reading Sci-Fi and Fantasy that it behooves an author to make sure their information is as accurate as possible. Also, I’ve read book and have seen movies where they don’t have the typical military jargon and it really takes away from the quality of the film or book for me on a level that I think even most non-military people pick-up on an unconscious level.    

This is important for any topic you’re writing about whether it’s about computer gaming or surfing. Knowing the slang, knowing the culture really gives life to any story. Now-a-day with Youtube.com, googlemaps.com, Facebook.com and all of the other multimedia sites out there we have the ability to really the ability to bring faraway places to life. Anyway, it’s a simple thing to make a better connection with your readers and to make your story that much more solid.