Broken Moon Restructuring!

I've been thinking recently of how I'd like to go about publishing my serials in the future, particularly in the context of my current (and planned future) work being more romance than erotica.

When I first got started with this whole writing thing I was mainly doing one-off erotic shorts, quick little short stories that gave the reader a steamy sex scene with some pretty bare-bones plotting and characterisation to back it up. Then one day I started writing sequels to one of my shorts, which quickly became a serial, and then finally my first full novel. When I moved on to my second eRom serial I basically kept on doing the exact same thing I'd always done -- individual chapters of a few thousand words priced at $2.99. I tried to make the chapters a bit longer, since this one had more of a focus on the plot and romance than the sex scenes, but it still basically followed the same model.

Now I'm writing Broken Moon, and even though I've made sure the chapters are consistently longer again, I feel like the price-per-word-count is a bit high given the content of the serial. This time I'm writing straight up romance. Half of the chapters don't even contain any sex, which I know is a big draw for people who are into steamy serials like my previous two. Nine 10-15k word chapters at 2.99 apiece feels pretty steep for a romance serial, and it's probably something I should've considered before starting on this one.

So! I've decided that I can probably afford to double up on Broken Moon's existing chapters and make them roughly twice their current length, bringing the whole series down to five parts rather than nine, with the first being free. It'll be a little awkward to reorganise everything on Amazon and my other retailers, but the current plan is to merge chapters 1-2 together, 3-4, 5-6, etc.
It'll mean slightly slower releases (though I'm going to do my best to pick up the pace!), but twice as much to read, and hopefully a much more financially agreeable pricing point to read through the whole serial once it's done!

I'm planning to merge the chapters and get everything uploaded over the next couple of days or so. Chapter 7 (as it currently stands) is essentially finished, but with this new structuring it'll end up being merged with some of the content of chapter 8 before I publish. So the current parts 7-8 will be released as the new part 4 some time later this month. Hopefully it's not all too confusing!

Depending on how this new model works out (both financially and in terms of reader reception) it'll probably be what I go with for my next serial romance. If I do more erotica serials they might be shorter in general and more focused around lots of sex in every chapter, but when it comes to the slower, more story-based burn of romance, I think lengthier chapters is probably the best option for everyone.

SCRATCH THAT

Okay, look, I'm allowed to have temperamental artiste changes of heart as long as they happen in the pre-production phase, right?

So after my last blog post about the novel I planned to work on after finishing Broken Moon I've since reconsidered my stance on that particular project. It's not scrapped, but it's on the shelf.
Why, you ask?
Because I realised it was just a collection of ideas that sounded neat. There was no emotional drive behind the project. I had perhaps one or two scenes in mind that I figured might be fun to write, but beyond that it was a vague mess of "maybe I could do that" and "wouldn't this be neat".
The kicker was that none of my enthusiasm came from the characters I was writing about. It's storytelling 101, and I feel like a dumby for not recognising it sooner, but if I didn't really care about the characters in the novel, how the heck was I going to enjoy writing it, much less make it enjoyable for others to read?

This realisation hit me as I was away visiting relatives over Easter (and getting some much-needed thinking space!), when an idea sprung into my head for a story that just kept getting more and more exciting until I ended up writing down several emails worth of notes to myself. This was a story that I was seriously passionate about, with characters who sprung into my head right off the bat, conflicts and plot lines that practically wrote themselves, and a tone and setting that's very close to my heart in literature.

Not to mention, it was something far closer to my current work than the project I had in mind before. There is a very specific kind of setting that I absolutely adore in fiction, and a kind of story that I've been longing to write for years, and I think I've finally gotten an idea that can work with it (without diverging too far from my current stuff).

I've blogged in the past about my favourite novels Maia and The Clan of the Cave Bear, and for as long as I can remember since reading those books I've wanted to write something with a comparable setting/tone for myself. My love of developing societies, tribal cultures, and archaic social structures in fiction is something I've tried to work into my werewolf serials to a degree, but it's always been difficult given that they are, ultimately, contemporary stories featuring characters who have a pretty modern understanding of the world.

What I want to do in this new novel is get rid of that modern element entirely and, sticking with the theme of paranormal shapeshifters, go way way back into the distant past, to a world where the tribal culture of werewolves isn't so different to the burgeoning human societies springing up around them.
My current plan is to tell a story primarily from the perspective of a human girl this time, one who becomes entangled with the werewolf pack threatening her village, and has her eyes opened to the way her people's enemies live their lives. Unsurprisingly, her love interest will be the alpha of the werewolf pack, and the heroine will have to deal with the animosity of both her own people and the werewolves as she begins to live a life caught between two worlds.

I have a whole bunch of details figured out so far, but they're not quite tidy enough to explain in detail just yet. I have several characters outlined, pretty much the whole first chapter loosely planned out, and lots of juicy conflicts ready to unfold as the story progresses.
I'm really excited about this one, and it's been a great little learning step for me as an author to realise what the big difference is between a project like this, and the one I had planned out beforehand. It's pretty much as mind-bogglingly simple as write about what you want to write about.
I'll be sharing more details as time goes on, and finishing up Broken Moon in the meantime!

The Wild Instincts box set is still coming along (urgh, it's taken a gross amount of time, and for that I'm super sorry!), and I've gotten back to doing re-edits on that whole serial when I have the time to. Chapters 1-3 should be available in their slightly more polished form on most retailers by now, and hopefully I can get the rest done before too many months slip away from me again!

Also, a long-overdue mailing list is in the works!

Broken Moon Part 6 published, and the next novel! (again)

Two thirds of the way through now! Chapter six is all ready and available to purchase on Amazon and Smashwords! This one's a little longer than usual again, and things are starting to get dramatic as we head towards the climax of the novel.

As the leadership of the Highland Pack becomes more and more unstable, April and Cyan's relationship begins to slip through their fingers. With Cyan's revelation about his past shaking April's faith in him, and her responsibility to her pack weighing heavily on her, she has little time left for love; especially not with a man she cannot trust.
The time may have finally come for Cyan to make a choice. When a disturbing discovery in the woods spreads further dissent through the pack, he hatches a plan with the human girl Lisa to draw a line under their worries once and for all.

So! With only three chapters of Broken Moon left to go, it's high time I started crystallising my plans for the next novel I'm going to work on. I mentioned last month that I had an idea in mind for something with a paranormal/BDSM theme, significantly more erotic than my current project, but still nice and romance-driven. It's still a very vague and loose idea, but I've given it enough consideration to have a few thoughts worth sharing. All of this is completely subject to change before I get started, of course, but here are the main pre-production notes so far:

- It's likely to have a period rather than contemporary setting, though the details and specifics will be vague. Right now I'm thinking of something in the ballpark of 18th/19th century England, set in both rural countryside and upper-class city areas.

- The paranormal theme will be to do with magic, though it will be vague and low-key. Less Harry Potter and more Game of Thrones. Much like the werewolf theme in my Wild Instincts books, it will not be something that the characters involved fully understand; a secretive and dangerous power that causes just as many problems as it does solutions.

- The heroine will come from a superstitious rural setting, where it is not uncommon for people thought to be practising witchcraft to be lynched or ostracised by their communities. Naturally, as a budding young witch, this causes a lot of problems for her. I'm planning to do some research on historical witch hunts (and how the laws in England began to change on them during this time) to dig up some juicy ideas for this one.

- The hero will be a young upper-class gentleman who is far more knowledgeable and adept with witchcraft than the heroine. His task will be to train and educate her, though it will be an obligation that is forced on him against his will.

- The central theme (for the heroine, at least) will be a coming-of-age/pauper-turned-princess story as the hero educates her and opens her eyes to the world, both socially and sexually.

- Much like in the original Wild Instincts and His Darkest Desire, the sexual themes will revolve around control and trust, along with independence, reliance, and an opening of the mind to new ideas and possibilities.

- The perspective will likely be the same as Broken Moon -- third person with multiple viewpoints.

Right now those are the main points that I've given consideration to. I've got a few fun scenes in mind that I'd love to write, and a handful of main characters ready to be fleshed out. There's still a lot of work to do (particularly on the hero), but I'm starting to get excited for the possibilities of this next novel.

I've no idea what the title is going to be yet. Probably something black magic-y, involving words like wicked or Master.

But before that, there's still a hefty amount of Broken Moon to finish! On to chapter seven!

Angry Reviews and the Ethics of Criticism

Anyone who has ever browsed the user comments section of a website will be no stranger to the kind of emotionally-driven comments the internet can draw out of people, and most of us, truth be told, are probably responsible for a few of them ourselves.

I want to talk briefly today about book reviews, and the ways in which readers put forward their opinions online.
I should start off by clarifying the difference between book reviews and those of most other mass-media. Books tend to be intimately personal. A movie or TV show, a video game, even many pieces of music are often worked upon by multiple individuals, but the vast majority of books can be attributed to a single author. This is what makes book reviews so meaningful to many authors. A lot of us see the stories we write as a reflection or expression of ourselves, and when others either praise or denounce our work we often feel it very keenly.

This has been something of a hot topic recently with Anne Rice's petition to stop online bullying of authors, and while I believe Rice's idea is absolutely the wrong way to go about this, she does highlight an existing problem with the way readers and authors communicate.
So what is and isn't acceptable reviewer behaviour when it comes to giving your opinion on an artist's work? Well, first and foremost, there is nothing wrong with vocally expressing dislike for something. Every consumer should have the right to absolutely trample on a piece of fiction if they feel like it was a poorly written, dull, offensive, or otherwise unpleasant thing to read through. Those sorts of comments can hurt to hear as an author, but they have every right to be voiced. One of the most important parts of dealing with criticism is accepting these negative points and taking them into consideration when you move forward with future projects.
So objective, honest criticism is free from blame here. It's the cornerstone of how we judge and appraise media, and without it the arts would be much worse off.

But then we move into the area of emotionally charged reviews. Objective criticism is, by definition, free from personal bias, but book reviews are rarely this clear-cut. As a medium based around evoking emotion, reviews that completely eschew the reader's feelings are few and far between. But is it ever right for a reader to get angry at an author?
I think yes. There are certain cases where an irresponsible author who plays with the emotions of their reader in an unsatisfying or distressing way should absolutely be subject to the frustrations of their audience. If a book sells itself as a sweet, lighthearted romance, only to be punctuated by a brutal rape scene with no literary merit half way through, then the person responsible for writing it should understand how that kind of emotional trickery makes people feel.
Most of the cases in which I've been emotional in my book reviews have stemmed from situations like this, when an author takes an ongoing story in a direction that jars against what I've been taught to expect, leaving me feeling disillusioned and upset. Authors are essentially glorified puppet masters playing with the feelings of their readers, and they deserve to be told when the emotional response they're evoking is an unsatisfying one.

Emotionally charged reviews are a grey area, but I believe a healthy balance between emotion and objectivity is critical in a good review (both for the author of the piece and for other readers). The line is crossed, however, when emotionally charged critique devolves into insults and personal attacks on the author responsible.
These are the kind of reviews that are so problematic for us, and why some authors end up feeling "bullied" by their readers. There is rarely an excuse for spewing vitriol at an author just because you didn't like the story they told.

But it's pretty easy to tell the difference between an objective review and author-bashing, and I think most writers quickly wise up to the fact that they have to bring down the shutters once reviews devolve into personal attacks. However, That still leaves us with the grey area of emotionally charged reviews that are harshly critical of something an author may have poured their heart and soul into.

Just the other day I was browsing reviews of a book I'd recently read to see how my impressions compared to those of other readers. It wasn't a book that I particularly enjoyed, but it was far from terrible. It had a lot of flaws, but nothing about it was offensive or upsetting. At worst it could be called ineffective.
To my surprise I discovered that one of the top reviews was a lengthy essay that picked apart the novel's failings point by point, absolutely littered with profanity, incredibly snarky comments, and direct insults aimed at the way it was written. None of these, as far as I could tell, were directed at the author, but I certainly know that it would have upset me if it had been a review of one of my books.
The crying shame is that the review made many good points. It was incredibly one-sided, but most of the points made were valid, useful criticisms for both the author and other potential buyers. It was so incredibly bogged-down in snark and borderline spite, however, that it was impossible for me to read through all at once, and after just a few sentences I was already feeling awful for the author of the book. She might have written a flawed story, but there was no way she deserved to have it ripped apart in what came across as a jeering school-playground kind of a tone.

So what's the solution to this? Well, I don't agree that Anne Rice's idea to yank away the curtain of internet anonymity is going to do anything positive for the state of online book reviews, and any rules or regulations (beyond perhaps flagging posts containing direct personal attacks on authors) stray into the ballpark of censorship, which is a terrible road to go down when it comes to media criticism.

Honestly I think it's just one of those things that falls on the shoulders of us as the reading and writing community. It's not a problem we can fix with strict guidelines, bur rather working gradually towards changing attitudes. Fostering a more positive, polite, and respectful mindset in reviewing strikes me as the best way to go here. It's fine to blast a book for all of its shortcomings, but remember that it was written by a human being; a human being who probably has a lot more emotional investment in their book than you do. Don't be overly snarky. Don't be rude. Don't be a jerkbag. Be critical. Be emotional, but restrained. Be judgemental, but polite. Respect the fact that there's a real person on the receiving end of your comments, and do your best to help them (and the community at large) to improve rather than simply using them as a target for your frustrations.

Sometimes we all get worked up about the books we read, and that's often a good thing.
We could just try to be a bit nicer about it.

Broken Moon Part 5 Published!

And a teensy bit earlier than usual, despite some delays! Fingers crossed that I can continue getting these chapters done in a timely fashion. I've worked out my writing schedule a little better recently, so it should be conducive to a slightly more busy release list!
As usual, Broken Moon Part 5 can be grabbed on Amazon and Smashwords, with other retailers to follow!

April is ready to commit to what she wants, but before she takes the plunge into a relationship that will change her life forever, there is one last story left for her lover to tell; the story of how he lost everything. As his tale of leadership, lust, longing, and violence emerges, April finally begins to understand who Cyan is, and what this discovery may mean for their future together.

But Cyan is not the only one with dark secrets to share.

At long last it's time for everything that happened in Wild Instincts to catch up with our hero, along with a few more revelations along the way!

Broken Moon is officially past the half way point now, and I'm continuing to have a blast with it. Lots of juicy drama and steamy romance still to come!

It's at this point that I often start thinking about what my next big project will be, and I have a couple of ideas in mind. Back when I first talked about Broken Moon I mentioned a second project that I wanted to work on concurrently, but that idea just didn't end up gaining any traction in the same way this one did.

I do have an idea for another erotic (likely BDSM-focused) novel brewing right now, and it'll continue in the same paranormal vein as my last two serials, but without focusing on werewolves this time. I don't think I'm done with the Wild Instincts world just yet, but I could probably use a break from it while I work on something else.

But first, it's time to press on with part six!

What Ruins a Story? (Part 1?)

This is one of those funny general topics that I've commented on a whole bunch of times in passing on this blog, but I've never actually taken a step back to talk about it as a whole. I thought about making this one big article on what I consider the best/worst characteristics of storytelling, but that's a huge amount to cover in just one sitting, so for now I'm going to focus on what tends to spoil a story just for me personally. This will be a largely subjective exercise, as I'm sure everyone else will value these points slightly differently, but here are some of the cardinal sins that ruin a good story for me.

First and foremost: inconsistent tone. This is something I commented on in detail when I talked about The Final Empire last year, and that book remains one of my prime examples of how fudging your tone can completely take readers out of a story. When I read books, I like to understand what I'm getting into. I don't mean that in an "I want everything to be predictable and boring" sense, but when you enter into a narrative you need to understand certain rules about how the story is going to work. You don't expect a pie-in-the-face gag half way through Schindler's List, and you don't expect disturbingly harrowing drama while watching a Disney movie. That's because those stories have consistent tones; they let you know what to expect, what to feel, and what frame of mind you need to be in to enjoy them. It's as much in the author's interest as the reader's to establish some grounding expectations about their work, and when those expectations start to conflict with story developments further down the line, you start running into big, big problems.
When you find yourself asking questions like "Wait, why did that happen?" or "How does that make any sense now?" then it's often telling of a divergence in tone or internal logic, often caused by a lazy writer throwing ideas out there without much consideration for their impact on the story. This for me is the worst way a story can be ruined, because it doesn't just disappoint the reader or leave them feeling upset; it kills their emotional investment in the narrative entirely.
I talked as well a year ago about my reaction to the ending of The Hunger Games, and how unsatisfied I was with the direction the author chose to go with that story. However, what happens at the end of Mockingjay is infinitely preferable to what turned me off The Final Empire. My reaction to Mockingjay was an emotional one. I had become invested in the characters and the story, and I cared about them enough that the ending made me even more emotional about how it played out, even if it was in an unsatisfying way. I think I mention in that previous post how I didn't think the ending was necessarily bad or poorly done, but that it simply wasn't appropriate for a series like The Hunger Games. If nothing else, that book at least left me with an emotional response when it finished.
The Final Empire turned me off in a very different way. Because the tone shifted so jarringly a few chapters in it caused all of my emotional investment in the story to evaporate. I put down that book and stopped reading because I just didn't care any more. It was some bizarre blend of silly, cheesy action mixed with the grim and gritty trappings of dark fantasy, a combination that did not mesh at all in my mind. I didn't understand the tone or what kind of mindset I had to approach the story with to enjoy it any more, and it ruined the book for me. While Mockingjay left me upset at the direction of the story, all The Final Empire managed was to make me frustrated with the author.

So! Moving on from my number one pet peeve, another thing that bothers me is when a story becomes tedious and predictable, usually be re-using the same tropes and conflicts over and over again. While I love a well-structured story that hits all the points of pacing like it's been planned out on a spreadsheet, what I don't like is when an author employs the exact same emotional tricks repeatedly and assumes they'll still have just as much impact as the first time around. This falls into the same ballpark of killing a story by means of killing the reader's interest in it. One particular book I've been reading recently is a well-polished, interesting, structurally sound novel that hits all of the right points on paper, but falls into the trap of retelling the same series of events over and over again with a slightly different coating of paint and no evolving emotional context to make them meaningful in the larger narrative.
Generally speaking, the hero and heroine run into a problem (almost always bad guys chasing them), panic, and are then helped out by supporting characters appearing out of the blue and assisting them for a handful of chapters, before disappearing and leaving the two protagonists to repeat the same process all over again like clockwork.
The pacing and writing is usually just fine, and these scenes were gripping the first couple of times around, but after a certain point they started to become tedious, because nothing was changing other than the superficial details. It's the same series of events over and over again, and it quickly becomes tiresome.
The reason I'm not the largest fan of the Game of Thrones series stems from a similar logic (although I should add the caveat that I don't consider those books to be bad at all, just not to my tastes). The way viewpoint characters were used to guide certain elements of the story, and the routinely dismal tone, eventually led me to a place where the "unpredictability" of the story became predictable and tedious, and my emotional investment gradually evaporated until I stopped reading part way through book three.

Phew, this post is already turning into a long one, so I think I'll wrap it up for now! Expect a Part 2 to come at some point, since there's still more stuff I can talk about when it comes to "what ruins a story". The two points mentioned above are definitely a couple of the biggies for me, not necessarily because they're the most damning, but because they're the ones that I usually find cropping up a lot in stories that are otherwise well-told and engaging. There's nothing worse than a story that looks pretty at first glance, only for the blemishes to become more and more apparent as you read on until it spoils the whole thing.

Broken Moon Part 4 Published!

I was hoping to push this one out a little earlier than usual, but all of a sudden it ended up being 5000 odd words longer than I'd planned! So here we go; part 4 is here, and we're getting into the meat of the romance and plot developments as we press onwards into the middle of the story. Available to purchase on Amazon and Smashwords, as per usual!

As her relationship with Cyan grows more intense and the looming prospect of her mating edges ever closer, April is finally forced to start confronting her feelings about what she truly wants -- and the price she may have to pay for breaking her pack's age-old code of honour. Tempers and dissent flare amongst the Highland Pack as the leadership of the secluded group of werewolves is called into question once again, with Cyan finally taking a stand for what he believes is right in spite of his promise not to get involved. With a new arrival in camp who threatens the secrecy of their hidden lives, April must choose where she stands; with her friends and family, or with the dark outsider who is fast capturing her heart.

Hopefully part 5 should be out in a slightly more timely fashion, as I've been working to optimise my writing time and plan things out more thoroughly in advance. Assuming it doesn't run on as much as this one, the next part should be finished before too long!

Also more blog articles. I need to stop forgetting to do them.