Save the World - Kill the Warrior!

Now available!

Former soldier Erik Harrison is a dead man walking. The sole survivor of an ambush, the guilt of losing his friends is crushing. He questions his own sanity, remembering the vision he saw as he was dying –– a battle angel come to collect his friends' souls. 

Valkyrie Brenna Lund doesn't know why she failed in her duty to reap Erik's soul on the battlefield. He deserves his place with the other mighty warriors in Valhalla, and if she wants to return home, she has to kill him. 

There are consequences for betraying the gods. But the closer Brenna and Erik become, the more they both want to risk everything for a future together. If only an immortal hunter weren’t sent to kill them both.

Excerpt:

Freyja spied into your heart and knew you wouldn't be able to do it. She knew even before you did.

It should have been easy to take a tired, weary warrior. Even one like Erik.

The question now was why? This was the second time failing in her duty and she was no closer to finding out why.

She rubbed her face with her palm.

Brenna got to her feet and walked toward the bathroom.

Maybe there was some sort of clue about him, something she could pick up. Her only memory of him before tonight had been almost a year ago and under very different circumstances.

The door was ajar, the water running. She edged close enough to look in.

The breath caught in her throat as she gazed at Erik Harrison, his bare torso gleaming with sweat in the dim light. The shredded remains of his shirt lay on the floor along with his jeans and shoes, kicked to the side in a jumbled heap. He wore only a pair of tight boxer briefs riding low on his hips.

It wasn't like she didn't know what a naked man looked like. Berserkers donned a scrap of bear fur as armor as they charged into battle, racing to a glorious death. Armored knights rode, encased in metal charging onto the battlefield. Soldiers from all times and places sat together in the Halls, fought every day and celebrated all night. She'd seen them all.

Including Erik, in the cage only a few hours ago, facing his opponent and going down to defeat wearing much the same as he had on now.

But this... this was different.

He wasn't perfect, far from it. Erik's chest was dotted with white puckered scars, some the size of nickels and others as short slashes. As he turned she saw his back and other, older marks showing previous battles. Yet it didn't seem to detract from the power coming off him in waves, the silent strength evident with every move, every shift of his body. The muscles were tight and well-defined, not an inch of fat on his frame.

He winced as he pressed a damp cloth to the mottled bruises over his left rib cage. Matty had focused in on that during the fight and it showed. The swollen cut over his eye had stopped bleeding and was already going down but it still warranted a cleaning and a fresh bandage.

She couldn't take her eyes off him. The toned muscles seemed to be calling to her urging her to soothe his distress with her touch, offer to take the pain away somehow. Images flashed through her mind of the couples she'd seen in the shadows of the Great Halls, lovers stealing away for some private time before the never-ending battles started at dawn.

Brenna clenched her fingers, digging her nails into the skin to stay still. A flash of heat between her legs shocked her and she pressed her knees together, cursing in silence.

What is this madness?

***

Now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and many other ebook stores! 

13 SF/F TV Shows

It's a good time to be a fan of paranormal, fantasy and SF TV! Or a bad time, depending on how much you appreciate being glued to the tube. Back in the days before the ubiquitous 3000 channels of cable, you were lucky to get two or three stations clearly. Options were limited. Now, television watching is splintered into many channels, many methods, many preferences. You can watch it live on the aforementioned 3000 channels; you can tape it and watch later; you can stream it online; you can Hulu it; you can Netflix it; and so on and so forth.

What this means for fans of speculative stories -- like we all are here at Beyond the Veil! -- is that you actually have choices! Just ten years ago, I'd make lists of the (US-aring) shows that included speculative (SF/F/paranormal) content in a newsletter I used to edit. I could actually come up with a relatively complete list every year, with measurements of that show's sf/f and romantic content. Today, my own arsenal of shows on my TiVo plus ten minutes of web surfing provided me a list of names probably four times as long as what I used to report on...and it was just the tip of the iceberg.

So I thought, since today is Thursday, I'd list thirteen shows with a brief explanation of their premise and then a relatively neutral measurement (1-10) of their sf/f content and their romance content.

1) Lost Girl: The world is inhabited by a race of Fae who feed on or otherwise utilize humans while not letting humans know the Fae exist. Light Fae don't kill humans; Dark Fae are happy to kill anyone. Heroine Bo is an unaligned succubus torn between Light and Dark. SF/F content: 8. Very urban fantasy-style worldbuilding with Fae powers usually being crucial to each episode. The world of the Fae is the main world explored. ROMANCE content: 8. Bo as a succubus has a lot of sex and there are a number of romances on the show, both with Bo and her Fae or human friends. The romance is always there, simmering.

2) Warehouse 13: A secret branch of the government collects supernatural "artifacts" and stores them in a hidden warehouse to keep them from ruining the world and stuff. Main characters are the warehouse agents and others involved in the operation. SF/F content: 7. Steampunky/science fantasy. The agents are sent after various artifacts each week that could usually destroy the world if not controlled. ROMANCE content: 4. Not the main focus of the show, although the plots do sometimes touch on romancey relationships.

3) Alphas: Superpowered humans live amongst us, and a secret group involved with the government is trying to keep a lid on the ones who are destructive. SF/F content: 6. While the alphas' abilities get used every week, there is a huge dollop of human drama and interaction as well. ROMANCE content: 5-7. Some of the characters have romances, and judging by Season 2, which just started, these threads may become more influential. Season 1, I'd have said the romance was more like a 3-4 influence on the show.

4) Haven: A spooky Maine town (are there other kinds?) is inhabited by people with dire abilities and/or curses (the troubles), usually not in control of them; the police, who have abilities/curses of their own, realize that it's getting worse. SF/F content: 5. This show is mythology-heavy, with the characters' and towns' backstories influencing many episodes, and the backstories are troubles-laden. ROMANCE content: 7. The first two seasons, the characters dabbled in romances, but a swing at at the end of the last season showed that romance may be taking center-stage in the new season.

5) Being Human: Paranormal roomies live together and try to pass as human, or at least not kill people. SF/F content: 8. Like Lost Girl, this show has an urban fantasy vibe, but darker and angstier. The characters' non-humanness and other nonhumans frequently influence episode structure. ROMANCE content: 8. Finding love can be hard when you are tempted to eat people. This doesn't feel like the kind of show that will have a lot of HEA love stories, though!

6) Supernatural: 2 extremely good-looking demon-hunting brothers repeatedly go to Hell and back as they strive to save the world and each other. SF/F content: 7. Human foibles and personalities are not given short shrift, although the Winchesters do spend a majority of their time fighting supernatural evil, each other, etc. ROMANCE content: 5. The important relationships in the show are more familial, although legions of fangirls squee (with good reason) anytime the brothers engage in romantic escapades. Note: I haven't watched the show since Season 4 and may be off on this proportion.

7) Grimm: In a world where paranormals try to exist in secret amonst humans (anyone sense a theme yet??), special "Grimms" can see who's paranormal and have made it their purpose in life to take them out...until our hero, a Grimm, comes along. SF/F content: 7. Our hero confronts various realities of this hidden paranormal world in every episode as well as his heritage, which comes with a healthy dose of mythology and bigger story arcs. ROMANCE content: 4. Hero begins the show in a healthy relationship for the most part, but that relationship is tested by his secret knowledge.

8) True Blood: In a world where paranormals have started outing themselves to humans, a batch of characters in Louisiana continually find themselves in the middle of blood, sex and chaos. SF/F content: 9. This show, based on the Charlaine Harris books, is about what it's like to exist as a supernatural with a few humans thrown in for balance. ROMANCE content: 10. That's sort of what the show revolves around. Sookie's nookie. That and vampires biting people.

9) Game of Thrones: Fantasy-medieval setting and large cast of characters, all striving to coexist, or rule, the smallish kingdom where the majority of the cast lives or wants to live. SF/F content: 4. Much of the setting is medieval/historical, but more threads of the supernatural have begun filtering in. ROMANCE content: 4. While people, mostly females, get naked constantly on the show, all the romances feel doomed, and the main emphasis seems to be on the political struggles, with sexxoring mixed in to screw, haha, stuff up.

10) The Walking Dead: Post-zombie apocalyptic world where the survivors have to avoid or kill the zombies and keep from killing each other as well. SF/F content: 4. I gather the zombies are the only supernatural element. ROMANCE content: unknown. I don't watch the show, but I haven't heard that the romance is a draw.

11) Falling Skies: Post-alien apocalyptic world where the survivors have to avoid or kill aliens and keep from killing each other as well! SF/F content: 5. The fact that aliens took over Earth and kidnapped and harnessed kids and continue to kill humans has a huge influence on the plots, although the other aspects are more survivalist. ROMANCE content: 3. The relationships and human dramas do not revolve around romances, although there are romantic aspects I wouldn't want to spoil.

12) Doctor Who: Time-traveling beings who can reincarnate as different actors as needed take on human companions in their quest to protect the timeline and Earth and stuff. SF/F content: 8. ROMANCE content: 4. I do not watch Doctor Who, so if you want to fill in these blanks, please do!

13) Vampire Diaries: Angsty teens, old vampires who look like teens and other supernaturals mix it up in a small town, complete with lots of mythology arcs. SF/F content: 7. ROMANCE content: 8. I do not watch Vampire Diaries, so if you want to fill in these blanks, please do!

NEW SHOWS FOR 2012:
Arrow - new
666 Park Avenue - new
Beauty and the Beast - new
Defiance - new
Revolution - new

So what glues you to the tube? Anything? Nothing? Want to do a brief rundown on any shows I missed?

Jody Wallace
When is an alpha not an alph-ass?
Pack and Coven: http://www.jodywallace.com

13 F-ed Up Reasons To Download My Fantasy Novella

This is Read an Ebook Week, did you hear? As part of the Festivities, I've allowed my Fantasy novella, A Mage By Any Other Name, to go FREE at Amazon.com, as this is its last month available exclusively at Amazon. It will be free until March 10. Here is the link: http://www.amazon.com/Mage-Any-Other-Name-ebook/dp/B006RO3LVS

Quick Blurb: Mary's new job with Wizard Williwim is perfect. Through gainful employment and access to the classified central library, she hopes to discover a route to the respect and approval she yearns for. For years she’s attempted one plan after another, and this one appears to be working.

But Mary’s life has never been that easy. When an enemy from her past reappears to endanger everything she has nearly achieved, she has to decide whether to confess some dangerous secrets she’s been hiding.

A tricky choice, when those secrets could lead to her and Williwim being cast out of the district...or being very, very dead.

Anyway, if you need further convincing, here are 13.5 F-'d up reasons to click on that link:

1) It's Free.

2) It's Funny.

3) It's Fantasy.

4) It's Feminist-ish.

5) It's Frabjuous.

6) It's (not) Feeble.

7) It's From Jody Wallace (because I KNOW this is convincing).

8) It's Funky, kind of.

9) It's Frisky, but not that kind of.

10) It's Fresh (only 2.5 months old!)

11) It's Fairly well edited (me and mine are good at the spelling, yo!)

12) It's Full of worldbuildy goodness.

13a) It's Feudal. Not as in feuds, but as in, based in a somewhat feudal system of government, owing to it being a relatively standard fantasy novel set in a pseudo-Middle Ages era that should be FAMILIAR to readers of this genre but still accessible to readers not as familiar with the genre.

13b) Come to think of it, it's Feudy too. There is a definite feud in the book that influences the progression of the plot.

Until March 10, then. Have at it and avast and stuff!

Jody W.
So much cyberspace, so little time!
www.jodywallace.com  / www.meankitty.com

Time to Get "Fixed"

I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am to announce that the DAW anthology, The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity, has hit brick-and-mortar and virtual bookstores everywhere.  In addition to featuring authors like Elizabeth Bear, Seanan McGuire, Jay Lake and Jim C. Hines, the collection contains my first story in a mass market paperback, a little (ahem) tale about a cat shifter trying his darnedest NOT to get “Fixed".

My contribution is a comedy, but the anthology has something for everyone.  To quote the jacket copy:

 

What if the fae were still here, living among us?  Perhaps living in secret, doing their best to pass for human?  Or perhaps their existence is acknowledged, but they’re still struggling to fit in.  How have they survived?  Are they outcasts clinging to the edges of society, or do their powers ensure success in the mortal realm?

Here are fourteen fabulous stories by Seanan McGuire, Susan Jett, Kari Sperring, Juliet E. McKenna, Avery Shade, Kristine Smith, Barbara Ashford, April Steenburgh, Anton Strout, S.C. Butler, Jean Marie Ward, Shannon Page, Jay Lake, Elizabeth Bear and Jim C. Hines—ranging from humor to dark fantasy—that explore how the creatures of the fae are fitting into the modern world.

And to whet your appetite, here’s a little taste of “Fixed”:

There were lots of advantages to being a part-time cat. Being chased by a Rottweiler named Bitsy through Holcomb Creek Park wasn’t one of them.

Heart pounding, chest heaving, Jack Tibbert raced down the bike path, insensible to the late November cold, the people on the path, or anything except escape. Bitsy’s heavy grunts grew louder as she closed the gap between them. His imagination added the heat of the dog’s breath on his neck as her massive jaws closed in for the kill. He had to take cover—high where her crushing teeth couldn’t reach. But where? To his right the ground dropped sharply to the creek. The leafless saplings mask­ing the fall were barely up to Jack’s feline weight. They’d never survive the dog. The only trees worth climbing grew on the left side of the path. To reach them he’d have to cross a field of dead grass set with exercise equipment too low to fend off a Chihuahua. It was gonna be close.

He feinted right. With a triumphant woof and the crackle of dead weeds, his pursuer plunged into the brush. Jack veered left, gaze locked on the outdoor bal­ance beam. If he could run the dog into the log…

“Look out!” a female voice screamed.

He turned just in time to see a bicycle twice his height tearing up the center of the path. Instinctively, he jumped. The wheel clipped his shoulder. He tumbled across the pavement and kept rolling until one of the saplings knocked all the wind out of him.

It took him a minute to put the world back together. Had to get up. Dog. Too close. Yelping? He shook his head.

“Are you all right?”

The light girlish voice seemed to come from heaven, which had dropped to a few feet overhead. The angel kneeling beside him had a perfect oval face, almond-shaped eyes and windblown black hair streaked with rusty brown. She looked about sixteen, maybe a year younger than him—the kind of girl you see in all those dumb TV shows set in high school but you never meet in real life.

Small teeth raked her plump lower lip. “Don’t scratch me, okay? I need to touch you to see where you’re hurt.”

Sugar, you can touch me wherever you want.

Somewhere in the background, Bitsy started to whine. Her owner wailed, “But it’s the cat’s fault!”

“Not if Bitsy was off her leash and chasing him,” Jack’s vision shouted over her shoulder. Foxy chick was a cat person, too. He purred, arching his back into the hand she trailed along his fur.

“Spine and hips, good,” she muttered to herself. She found his tail. He flicked the tip playfully. “All right. Any­thing else we can fix.”

She flinched at another blast from the Rottweiler’s owner. “Just keep her calm, Mrs. Saar. It’ll be okay. I’ve got my phone. 

“It’s not like it hasn’t happened before,” she added under her breath.

She couldn’t keep her hands off him. Swearing at the hit-and-run cyclist, dialing her phone—the whole time, one of her hands was stroking him or scratching the sweet spots behind his ears and between his shoulders. He rewarded her by turning the baby blues on high. They worked their usual magic. Her bright brown eyes and pretty pink mouth got all soft. She forgot the phone pressed to her left ear. When the call connected, she bounced in surprise. Ev-er-y-thing bounced.

With a grin as wicked as feline lips allowed, Jack rolled his shoulders and hauled himself to his feet. Joints popped. A dozen different muscles and tendons hummed with pain. He tottered a couple steps, wincing at his scraped fore pads, and collapsed dramatically across her jeans.

To find out what happens next, you really need to read the book.

Yes, I am evil like that.  Why do you act so surprised?  ;-)

Jean Marie Ward

From Cuddle to Climax: The Changing Face of Romance

Romance is one of those things that, for many of us, is a guilty pleasure. I didn’t read it much when I was younger, I read more in science fiction and fantasy. The stories that excited me, though, had fully-developed relationships in them. When I first read Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series I found a fully-realized fantasy novel with actual sex and romance. What an eye-opener. From there, I started re-examining my assumptions about romance.

I think many of us who are in the science fiction and fantasy genre look down on romance because of all the usual things: it’s a trite storyline, they don’t really do anything interesting, the writing is tawdry, there aren’t any good stories. All of those statements, though, are incorrect. Sure, there are romance novels that fit that profile, but there are also science fiction, fantasy, and mystery ones that do. From my perspective with a B.A. in Russian literature and Civilization, I can also add that there’s a sort of elitism associated with disliking romance novels. For American women, it’s like liking soap operas: everyone says they are too intellectual to watch them, yet you scratch such a person and they can tell you who Victor on the Young and the Restless is. Once I started reading good romance, though, the chip fell off my shoulder very quickly. These stories are good, and the writers are good. And wow – talk about titillating and enticing!

It comes down to the guilty pleasures we pursue but don’t admit in public. Authors such as Hamilton bring those pleasures into the mainstream, and the rest of romance has followed suit. I think it’s a reflection more of society than of genre writing in particular – twenty years ago we would never have gay romances out and open on television nor would we have soft core porn on cable, yet now we have Queer as Folk and True Blood as two wildly popular shows. I think my fellow author Xakara is much better qualified to talk about modern media offerings, but I will say that I think society’s changing views and openness, at least as far as my own culture here in the U.S. is concerned, is getting more open and our books are a reflection of that.

For myself, writing erotica isn’t a new pursuit, but sharing it publicly is. I remember the first time I posted a story with sex in it, one that is relatively tame compared to my other stories, and I felt nervous and giddy. Now, Burning Bright, our new release with Samhain Publishing, has full-blown sex and BDSM in it – two subjects I didn’t think I’d be able to write publicly.

Because of this, I think the reading consumer is growing more sophisticated about what they like to read. Readers know what they like and they ant ore of it, better quality, and fast. This is not to imply that the quality of what is there is bad, but that with the ebook revolution there are more outlets for authors to play in and more opportunity for us to provide content that brings us a paycheck. It’s no longer the days of secretive sharing of erotic material or Penthouse Forum letters; now it’s mainstream publishers looking for fully-imagined stories in which sex is a factor of the action just as much as story is.

I think this trend will only continue. To some extent, our collective fascination with sex in the novel will wane as other things grab our attention. But I see the trend of having it here to stay because of the sophistication of internet search engines and the many ways publishers can now classify works. Back in the days of only brick-and-mortar stores, you could only put a book in one location in the store – and thus, the idea of the genre was born. It led to silly things – such as when I couldn’t find Stephen King’s book On Writing in the “Writing Books” section but found it in “Horror” along with his prodigious fictional offerings. With the internet, we can classify it in a multitude of ways so that the Stephen King fan and the person interested in writing can find it easily, though each has very different desires.

I’m excited by this trend, to be honest. The idea of genre makes me impatient, both as a writer and as a person interested in literature. I believe a story should be considered exactly that: a story, not a mystery, a romance, or whatever else. Then it can be judged on its merits as a story alone and not as being representative of a type. I think readers will need to modify some opinions for that to happen; but, in the meantime, with the prevalence of internet searches and keywords, those of us who want good stories with particular elements in them don’t have to wonder where to find them. We can simply do a search on the elements we desire and voila.

Story.

Write on!

Aunt Noony’s Five Tips for Worldbuilding

1. Decide in which world you want to set your story. As Xakara mentioned in her post, ANY world in which we write, be it the “here and now” or the “once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away” has its own rules and customs. Once you’ve decided where you want your story to be set, ask yourself some questions on behalf of your main character:

a. How do they make their money? If they are supported by someone else, how do they make the money that supports your character? Are there taxes? Tributes to pay? What skills do they need to make a living?

b. How do they live? Do they have a house in a residential area? Are they on a ship with hundreds of other individuals? Underground?

c. What do they eat? If it’s not set on earth, how does the food get there? Who produces it, and how is it transported from producer to table?

d. How do they deal with the climate? What is clothing like? What are the buildings like? Human beings are fragile creatures but have many ways of mitigating environmental impacts. Describe how your character deals with them.

2. What rules govern relationships? Is there marriage? How does it work? How do kinship paradigms work? In some cultures, for example, adult siblings of the opposite sex are allowed to be friends with one another but with no other individuals of the opposite sex outside the family. What about rules regarding children? How are children treated in your world?

3. What kinds of organizations have sprung up? Is this a simple society with clan and maybe village government? Is this a megalithic society with governments and complex politics? How do roads get built, taxes levied and collected, money produced and invested?

4. As you develop the answers to these questions, it’s useful to create a document that accompanies your work but that can be used as an encyclopedia of rules for you. You can call it what you like, but make sure it includes lists of characters and their details, relationships, government notes, and notes on anything else that you need to keep in mind. For example, if you are building a werewolf society, then you might have a section in your document called “Werewolves” that details who’s in charge, how succession is handled, what colors the wolves are, etc.

5. Do people swear? This can tell you a lot about a society and culture. For example, if you set your world on a planet that doesn’t have a Euro-American Christian majority as the dominant paradigm, then “God” or “Dammit” probably aren’t common swearwords. If you create an Egyptian society, you might use “By Anubis’s teeth” or something similar. It’s useful to come up with several options, from equivalents to the “F” word all the way down to something minor like “crap” or “darn.”

If you’re still stumped, try answering the questions above using your favorite worlds. Some places to start would be Star Trek or Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series.

Have fun!

To Dream of Electric Sheep

Greetings, Kittens!

I grew up on science fiction and fantasy and have loved them both since before I could read. My mother would come home with bags of books from the library and I would get to go through them and pick out the covers I liked. She’d read me the blurbs and explain the story and we’d decide which one to start first. Throughout her reading, I would come back and get chapter updates, or what at four years old I thought was chapter by chapter, and I got to experience the twist and turns of faraway worlds and duplicitous human nature.

I learned to read later that same year, but I got those updates until I was eight and could read the same books on my own. By then, I knew the kinds of worlds that waited for me and I couldn’t wait. Much to my delight it would only get better, as sub-genres grew and spawned sub-genres of their own. Cross-genre works would further open the field, and by the time I would start publishing some twenty plus years later, the doors of what could be done would be thrown wide open.

Despite my absolute love of Cyberpunk and its subgenres Biopunk and Nanopunk, I don’t embrace the dystopian mindset of technology as our downfall. Blame or credit Star Trek as you will, but I have the fundamental belief that technological advancement, is human advancement. And as it has for my lifetime so far, technology will continue to make things easier, make the world smaller and make democracy a truer force.

The terms I’ve come across to embody that belief are NeoCyberpunk and Cyberprep, but I use Futurist Paranormal to describe my genre. My stories brim with shifters, psychics, ghost and vampires, all set in near-future worlds. The open acknowledgement of the supernatural and acceptance of possibilities, directly results in more advanced day to day technology. It has touches of cyberpunk and biopunk, with the pervasiveness of the technology and biological implants/manipulation, but the technology has merely moved us forward, often for the better. The worlds still have their issues, but the society has clearly embraced scientific advancement on all fronts.

That’s not to say I don’t have a story or three in the back of my head that's dark and harsh. I love the post-apocalyptic genre as well, and I have my fair share of catastrophic plotlines to come. There’s just something darkly beautiful about watching humanity persevere against the odds. But when it comes to the prediction of technology and its applications, I feel that as long as communication tech keeps us informed, and science is tempered by ethics, we’re more than on track to live better, rather than suffer at the hands of our own genius.

I’m happy to admit that I didn’t set out to write futurist fiction. I didn’t even originally recognize that I’d done so. It came to me as a logical extension of preternatural minds in the tech field, able to advance unchecked. I realized the habit only after seeing it written about me by a reviewer. I sat back and realized that every single story done, and all of those in queue at the time, had the same futurist bent. It just goes to show, we write what we’re drawn to and can’t escape the things we love and the journeys that define our worldview.

What about all of you? What subgenres do you draw from again and again within your work? What are your thoughts on future tech and where it will take us?

~X

*The title of this post is from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick . The book is the basis for movie Blade Runner. The image is from Tokyocypberpunk.com

Characters First?

Hi everyone,

I'm a new blogger here at Beyond the Veil! My name is Leslie Dicken and write paranormals, fantasy and historicals (gothic and steampunk). Guess I can't settle on just one subgenre! But one thing is the same no matter what type of story I'm writing: plot comes first.

I'm supposed to write about specific characters, ones I love or hate, but I'd rather talk about how creating characters comes SECOND when I'm brainstorming a story.

I hear over and over again how authors come up with their characters...THEN they figure out the plot or storyline that works for that character. I heard that J.K. Rowling came up with Harry Potter, the character, while on a train ride. She didn't think of Hogwarts or the Sorcerer's Stone, but of the boy who was a wizard and lived with his muggle aunt and uncle.

As for me? I first have an idea of a story or theme or a plot. For example, I wanted to write about a hero who learns he is not an earl, but a bastard (A TARNISHED HEART). Or an alien who dislikes humans but must find one to help his home planet (THE PRICE OF DISCOVERY). Or a society where two cultures have lived apart from one another for so long, they've evolved differently (TABOO). An isolated manor with a hero who thinks he's committed murder (BEAUTY TEMPTS THE BEAST). I've even just wanted to combine various subgenres into one story: steampunk, historical, suspense (THE IRON HEART, Feb 2012).

None of them started with the idea of central character who needed to find a story. They all started with an idea...a plot or theme or just a challenge to myself.

Hopefully, the characters I created for these stories are just as well-developed as those authors who start with character first. :-)

If you're an author, which do you come up with first: character or plot?
As a reader, what makes you feel a connection with a character in a story?

I was a rotten kid. As a child I loved to torment my brothers and boss around the other kids on my block. As a result, I didn’t have many friends. (Yeah, I know. Sad, but I deserved it.)

That’s when I started making up my imaginary playmates. My first playmate was a boy named Larry. I adored Larry and took him everywhere I went. He would sleep in the imaginary bed across from mine. He would sit next to me at the dinner table. Heck, he even played softball, standing right next to me, although he was never a very good player.

Best of all, Larry was as rotten as I was. Larry was the culprit whenever my hand developed a mind of its own and thumped my brother in the head. Larry took the blame whenever I “accidentally” bumped a bowl full of vegetables off the table to scatter awful-tasting peas across the floor. Larry was with me, egging me on when I dropped water balloons off the roof onto unsuspecting neighbors. Larry was the one who made me stay up late and miss the school bus. Larry was, for all the wrong reasons, the perfect playmate.

Then I grew up and Larry went away. Or did he?

I love writing all the characters in my books, both good and bad. Heroes and heroines alike find a place in my heart. But I have to admit that the bad boys claim a special corner. Why? Perhaps it’s because each of my bad boys, whether or not they turn out to be the villain or the hero, has a part of Larry in him.

For instance, the three Cannon brothers in my Cannon Pack werewolf series are different, but they all have a bit of Larry thrown into their personalities. Jason Cannon has Larry’s uninhibited streak. Devlin Cannon has Larry’s witty sarcasm and Daniel Cannon is the guy who acts more calloused than he really is. In my latest book, CLAWED (Wild Things, Book 3), Conan is a bear (literally) of a man who takes on Larry’s habit of one-word answers. Like Larry, he’s stoic, aloof and sometimes downright rude. But in the end, Conan─again like Larry─will do anything for his girl.

So you see, Larry continues to live. Sure, he went away while I grew up and developed other interests. But when I wanted him again, when I became a writer and needed a bad boy, Larry came back to stay.

Now here’s the question for you. Since most of us have had an imaginary friend at one time or another, does your friend still live on in you? Is your friend by your side whenever you shake your head and answer, “I don’t know who did it”? If no, don’t you wish you had your imaginary friend back in your life?

Sidetrack to Destiny

I was watching a rerun of Supernatural (“It's a Terrible Life”), and toward the end an angel urges Dean to get back to what he’s destined to do. Maybe there’s an angel prodding at me, because I’ve really been feeling an urge lately to get back to my destiny: writing.

I took a break from my destiny for a while, in order to get some personal stuff together, and well, maybe have a mini nervous breakdown. But I’m better now, and what I miss the most is being neck deep in a story. Actually, I never totally stopped writing, but what I was doing was sticking a toe in, I want to dive head first into the murky water of a twisted plot, odd and interesting characters, and fascinating creatures. Like, say, Bigfoot. That’s a little different, don’t you think. Hey, I’m known for different, just ask my friends and family.

You know what the most fun of fantasy is, right? It’s the melding of fact with fiction. My next-door neighbors yell at each other at weird hours, and I just smile and say, “They are so going to wind up in one of my books.” Somebody does me or someone I care about wrong, a character with some resemblance to them might just come to a ghastly end. I hear about a really strange event, I might just find a way to twist it so that it fits into my crazy fictional world. Even a childhood bully from long ago is fodder for payback, paranormal fiction style.

Okay, I’ll admit it. My imaginary friends didn’t leave when I grew up, they just became characters. Not that I mind. I enjoy playing with them. They’re a lot of fun, but I really wish I could control them. They have a tendency to want to tell me what to do.

What’s that? Oh, excuse me, I have to go. There’s a Bigfoot at my front door. And he’s yelling at me to tell his story. Ooh and it’s an interesting one too. This is going to be fun.

Have a great weekend!

Cheryel

www.cheryelhutton.com

Back from Vacation

Okay, before I write my post I'd just like to note that I'm excited to see that my cat-shifter romance, Puma, is now on sale in paperback on Amazon! Though it's not officially on sale until August 4. Anne Cain did the lovely lovely cover.

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I'm back from vacation and brain dead. There's also a very cute cat stalking the clover in our front yard. These two sentences are not much related.

I actually find it harder to be online during the summer, there are so many distractions! I'm curious if internet use decreases in July and August or not. Or if it's just me. September is the month to hunker down again and focus on the jobs, and I tend to be more online then. (And read less.)

So I did some reading on vacation and that was a lot of fun. Among the books I read were a selkie romance (Sea Lord by Virginia Kantra), historical fiction about slavery (The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill, published as Someone Knows My Name outside of Canada), alternate history with dragons in the Napoleonic wars (Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik), fantasy of manners (The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner) and a historical romance (Broken Wing by Julia James).

Often I'll read romance only, but then I'll suddenly want to break out of that reading pattern and pick up quite different sorts of books. What have you been reading this summer?

Growing up with Fantasy

I grew up with Fantasy. Even before I read my first romance (thank you Louisville Public Library for not stifling the curiousity of a 12 year old when she first found the clench cover) I had fallen in love with Anne McCaffrey, Piers Anthony and Tolkein.

Anne McCaffrey had the most wonderful dragon stories, and opened a world to me I never knew existed. When I first laid eyes on "The White Dragon", I was a goner. I quickly searched out Dragonsong and Dragonsinger, and went looking for more tales of fantasy.

 

I'm not sure how I got from McCaffrey to Anthony, but when I read Piers Anthony's tales of Xanth they took my breath away. I spent many long hours happily lost in a very non-Mundane world.

Less than a year later I finally moved on to Tolkein. I thought myself more than a little in love with Frodo, and dreamed great dreams of going on his adventures. Before we had Orlando Bloom in pointy ears and tights, Frodo was my hero.

It was pretty soon after that I found those clench covers on the library racks. For a while, my love for fantasy was forgotten, and I moved on to more romantic reading. Through middle school and most of high school, I was very happy with my romance novels and "required" literature reading.

Then one day at Books-A-Million during my junior year of high school, I came across this :

I still remember standing there in the bookstore reading the first two chapters.  Buying it, then racing home and staying up until late into the night reading about Tanis and Sturm, Caramon and Raistlin.  It was love from first sight, and the Dragonlance Chronicles became some of my favorite reads as I left high school and went to college.

I’ve read a lot of good fantasy, and more than a little great fantasy, in the years since.  But these 4 series have been some of my most passionate book loves for many years now.  Even today I can reread them and be amazed by the stories these authors could weave, the worlds they could bring to vibrant, captivating life

Every book we love should leave a bit of itself behind after you close the cover.  So it isn’t surprising that I’ve written my first fantasy.  And if you’ve read my previous Samhain release, you won’t be shocked to find that my fantasy world is a bit more sensual – ok, much much more sensual – than the worlds of the authors I read as a preteen and teen. 

Do you still reread the books that you loved when all books were new to you?  And how did they shape the books you love today?

Look for Flawed, by Ember Case, coming June 30th from Samhain Publishing

Flaws

Flaws.  We all have them. 

David Beckham, oh god of Armani underwear,

 

has a thing for skinny blonds with boy haircuts.  Nora Roberts head hops like a Mexican Jumping Bean (although since I still adore her books, is this a flaw or just her style?)  I fuss at my kids if they bother me when I’m trying to work - and man, will seeing Coraline ever give you a complex about that.

But there are flaws, and then there are Flaws.  The heroine of my new book Flawed – coming this summer from Samhain Publishing  – has some pretty serious ones of the capital Flaw flavor.

She’s a princess and heir to the kingdom; life should be pretty good, wouldn’t you think?  But happenings in her world of Elfish magic and court treachery has her backed into a pretty tight corner.  Her magic?  Nonexistent.  Her birthright?  Seems to have deserted her.  And even David Beckham up there wouldn’t be doing anything for her – she’s got a serious problem when it comes to sex.

I think I’ll take my short temper over her set of problems.

Have you got any flaws you want to admit to?  Or maybe, as gamers are often sarcastically saying, they aren’t really flaws, they’re features! 

Ember Case ~ Come Twitter with me

Creature Feature: Drow - Dark Elves

Some of you may know I do a regular feature on my blog called "Wallpaper Wednesdays." I like to dabble in graphic art and turn some of my creations into wallpapers you can use on your computer. Just about every Wednesday (I miss some when I have other events going on), I give away a new one for free on my blog. Most of the time, they're images depicting scenes or characters from my books, but not always. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, I featured a composition I did just for fun - a drow warrior maiden. It got me thinking, "what exactly is a drow and where did they come from?"

See, I don't remember seeing drows in my childhood fairy tales. So I did a little research to figure out why they're so popular now. Here's what I found:

According to Wikipedia, the drow "is a mythical elf-like creature in Scottish folklore which lived in caves and forged magical metal work." Further, "Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1970) states: "Drow, n., [scot.]." The word is a variant of the Scots term "trow", which itself derives from the Scandinavian word "troll". The race itself seems based on another dark elf, specifically the Dökkálfar of Norse mythology." If you look up "dark elves" you find that they were traditionally thought to live underground and look sort of like dwarves.

Interesting. So the term has been around a long time. But where do we get these sexy, black-skinned, white-haired creatures that are so popular now from? A little more digging reveals that a lot of that probably comes from Dungeons and Dragons. I've never been much of a gamer, but I do recally my brother playing D&D for a little while back in the day, when it first became popular. Again looking to Wikipedia, they describe drows the following way:

Within the context of the Dungeons & Dragons game, the drow were forced
underground in what is now known as the Underdark after the great war amongst
the elves, a vast system of caverns and tunnels spanning much of the continent.
The drow live in city-states in the Underdark, becoming one of the most powerful
races therein.

The drow are well adapted to seeing in the dark, and they loathe the light of the surface. Some magic weapons, armor, and various other items of the drow disintegrate on contact with sunlight.
...
Drow characters are extremely intelligent, charismatic and dexterous, but share
surface elves' comparative frailty and slight frames. Females tend to be bigger and stronger than males. Drow are characterized by white or silver hair and obsidian black skin. Their eyes are red (or rarely gray, violet, or yellow) in darkness and green in normal light. Drow have several kinds of innate spell powers and spell resistance. This is balanced by their weakness in daylight. Also, drow weapons and armor (usually made of adamantite or another metal unique to the Underdark) slowly lose their magical properties if exposed to the sun.

In Advanced Dungeons & Dragons second edition, adamantite disintegrates upon exposure to sunlight unless specifically treated. Drow also employ the unusual hand crossbow, firing small, though very lethal, darts. Half-drow are the result of crossbreeding between another race and a drow, and share characteristics of both. (The term "half-drow" usually refers to one who is half drow and half human.) Half-drow are also generally evil; however, half-drow of differing alignments are more common than non-evil full drow.

Drow males are commonly wizards or fighters. Females are almost always clerics and almost never wizards.
...
As a race, drow are usually evil.

Artists and writers of fantasy have expanded from there, it seems. I haven't written about any drow characters yet, but the idea is intriguing, isn't it?

The image at the top of this post is one of the many free desktop wallpapers I offer on my blog. It started out as an art project and turned into a research project. I hope you've enjoyed this little walk through drow history as much as I. If you're interested in my art, check out my blog on Wednesdays! If you're interested in the image above, check out this post in particular. There you'll find a number of different sizes you can right click and save to your desktop. Enjoy!

Bianca D'Arc

Come over to The D'Arc Side... http://www.biancadarc.com/

Introduction

Well, this is my first post here at BtV...and I have NO idea what to say! Which, for anyone who knows me, is actually kind of impressive.

I'm also a former FaE blogger, though I'll admit I've been so swamped with real life this past year I never got to know my fellow-bloggers well enough. I'm hoping to work on that in the coming months here.

The short version bio:

I'm 31 years old, and due to have my fourth child in 5 weeks. (three boys so far)
I have the most fantabulous husband ever.
I write fantasy. With romance and without. With sex and without.

Wow. Way to sum myself up in three sentences, eh?
Oh yes, I'm Canadian. ;)

Funny enough, the first question most people ask me is "why Fantasy". Granted, with things like Eragon and the Spiderwick Chronicles coming out as movies, I'm getting that question a little less. But I was still made to feel as though 'magic' was something I should have put aside about the same time I realised we really couldn't keep a pony in the garage.

Instead, my fascination with it all has just grown as I have. I'm amazed by how many writers have put their own spin on old favourites. Or who have created entirely new legends that live on in the global subconscious as something which 'simply always has been.'

I love the freedom of being able to create worlds, to establish my own rules and cultures. I love the epic nature of fantasy books - it isn't just boy meets girl, but it's often World meets World. Or...boy meets girl and saves the world ;)

I love the fact that fantasy books tend to have something which triumphs over all. Whether it's good over evil, or love over death or...well, you get the idea. There's a transcendence. An ability to believe in the best of people, even if they're not human. And when it's written very very well - the fact the characters aren't human just underscores their humanity, which I think is pretty freaking cool.

So why fantasy?
Why not ;)