Guest Post: Leonid Korogodski

Our guest post today is from Leonid Korogodski, author of Pink Noise: A Posthuman Tale. Be sure to read my review of his book, as well as his author interview!
.

On Worldbuilding

by Leonid Korogodski

One of the advantages of the speculative genres, such as science fiction and fantasy, is the author’s ability to place her characters in situations that are impossible to come across in real life. If done well, this can push the test of character to the extreme, revealing something new about our humanity. But it is also very easy to do badly. Without the strict constraints placed on the author’s imagination by reality, to strike gold in worldbuilding can be as hard as finding real gold in the mountains of California—especially these days, after it has been mined so thoroughly already.

To succeed in worldbuilding, the author should be mindful of three things: consistency, scope, and relevance. It helps to think of this in terms of how our brain constructs the image of the world in the mind’s eye—which also is, essentially, worldbuilding.

It is in the nature of our consciousness to make the world around us consistent. We are rarely aware of the fact that what we see, touch, smell—experience in any way—is the brain’s model of the world that’s only faithful to a degree. Sometimes, this model differs widely from the reality around us. But it is consistent always.

In a neurological condition called hemineglect, the afflicted person perceives just half the world—either one half (say, the right one) of the entire visual field or only one half of every object (as long as something is indentified by the brain as a single object). For example, she would only see the right half of the clock, from 12 to 6. But, remarkably, the patient doesn’t feel that anything is missing from her world. One woman with hemineglect complained she wasn’t given enough food in the hospital. It turned out that she only ate what was on the right half of her plate. A doctor taught her to turn the plate around once she was done eating. Lo and behold—more food magically appeared on the plate! She ate a half of that, then turned the plate again, and so on—like Achilles ever trying to catch up with the Zenon’s turtle. But she didn’t feel that there was anything in the world she couldn’t see.

Like water closing over a stone thrown in a lake, our consciousness “closes” over the gaps in our perception resulting from brain damage, trying to stitch together another seamless image of the world the best it can—anything, as long as it’s consistent. Otherwise, the mind would go insane.

So the author should be extra careful for her world to be internally consistent. The moment the reader catches a contradiction, the illusion of immersion in the story shatters, is replaced by the distinct feeling of artificiality.

It doesn’t even have to be an explicit logical contradiction. It suffices that the reader feels that something is not right. For example, if magic only offers advantages without exacting a price, then not only does it break the reader’s credibility but it risks boring her to death, because omnipotent characters just aren’t interesting.

The next major aspect of worldbuilding is its scope. In a story by the Strugatsky brothers, a man has an odd dream in which everyone he meets is clad only in some seemingly arbitrary articles of clothing—a hat and a bowtie, for example—and nothing else. This parade of semi-naked people continues until the man realizes that these are all fictional characters that were only described as having a particular hat and a bowtie, in our example.

Now, I don’t mean by this that the author must describe the world of the story in super-meticulous detail, lest she be plagued by such nightmares. Far from it. Rather, this scene illustrates the power of storytelling to convey a seemingly complete picture to the reader (who doesn’t stop to think, in the middle of her reading, of whether a given character is naked because no other clothing is mentioned) without having to describe everything.

The author writing about the realities of today’s life has it easier, because the reader is already familiar with the world and can automatically fill in the missing details to form a consistent image in her mind. The less familiar the world, the harder it is for the author. After all, if the reader must be made familiar with the world, she must believe that at least the author is. One must earn the reader’s trust. But how?

Here scope comes to the rescue of consistency. When building the world, make it as complete in your mind as you can. The more fantastic the world, the wider must the scope be: geography, geology, maybe even the movement of the planet relative to its star (or perhaps, the world is on a galactic scale, with planets scattered like tiny hamlets?), the climate, the flora, the fauna, the tribes or nations present in this world and their cultures, the races, the languages, the economy (what’s used as the money, for example?), the level of technology, the magic (if any), and so on—all of these aspects mutually influencing, and sometimes determining, each other to create a cohesive whole that makes sense.

But don’t describe it all! Perhaps just 5% of what you construct is ever mentioned in the story, maybe merely in passing. But if you let it all inform your writing, this tip of an iceberg will suggest a hidden shape beneath. If done right, the unspoken realities will speak through the characters’ actions. Then the reader will feel the rest of it, will sense that the author knows more about the world than she reveals—will “dress” its semi-naked shell. These hidden 95% of your worldbuilding will give your world more weight, establishing the sense of it being real.

But how to construct it all? Remember that, no matter how fantastic is the world, the story ultimately must be relevant to us, or else we won’t find it interesting. One way to build the world is to plant a seed—some aspect of the real world—from which to grow the divergent fruits.

It is not surprising that the Tolkienesque fantasy worlds (and Tolkien’s own world itself!) are so popular. The spirit of medieval Europe and the Celtic motifs are more familiar to the Western reader than an arbitrary smorgasbord of fantastic elements, because they (the motifs) tap into the mythic roots of the Western culture. However we may pretend not to notice it, myth runs deep in our blood, informing our entire culture.

But one can also base one’s world on other cultures. If you do your research right, if you capture that culture’s spirit, then the reader will readily accept whatever differences you impose on your world—and ask for more. In The Lions of al-Rassan, Guy Gavriel Kay models his alternate world on the culture of medieval Spain before the Reconquista, when Christians, Muslims, and Jews coexisted peacefully for a few centuries—yet with their precarious way of life always subject to internal tensions and the threat of outside invasion. The three cultures in the story parallel the three cultures in the real world. Yet this conceit allows Kay to conjure situations that have never come to pass, bringing together characters whose real prototypes have never met nor even lived at the same time—in the process, learning more about our own world.

The fantasy genre is now burgeoning with the worlds based on a wide and ever growing variety of cultures, including Asian and African.

Another approach is to deviate but little from reality. In the “urban fantasy” subgenre, the stories are set in our world yet populated with supernatural creatures, like vampires. The Mundane Science Fiction movement has vowed in their manifesto not to use any science that is only hypothetical and/or unlikely, such as faster-than-light travel, mind uploads, and the like. The slipstream genre, that resides together with magic realism in the liminal gray area between mainstream and fantastic literature, prides itself on its carefully cultivated sense of dislocation—which, in order to work, must have a familiar setting to begin with.

And then, there is intentional inversion. It can be subtle, like in my own book Pink Noise: A Posthuman Tale that uses a posthuman world—the world of disembodied minds uploaded into a digital format—as a foil against which to measure our humanity. And it can be grotesque, like in the New Weird movement that subverts, on purpose, the romanticized ideals of traditional fantasy and science fiction.

Thank you to Leonid Korogodski for spending so much time with us this week!

Author Interview: Leonid Korogodski

Today we learn a little more about Leonid Korogodski, author of Pink Noise. Come back tomorrow for an insightful guest post from him about world building!

Jennifer Walker: Tell us about Leo the writer. How, when and why did you get started writing?


Leonid Korogodski: Jennifer, thank you for the chance to talk about myself and my writing.

I may have written a poem or two as a very young child (who doesn’t?), but I didn’t really start writing fiction until my thirties. English is not my native language. I was born in Ukraine, then a part of the Soviet Union. I spoke Russian best, and Ukrainian less fluently. But writing fiction in either language didn’t cross my mind. In the Russian intelligentsia, there is a decades-old polarization between “physicists” and “lyricists.” With my interest and then career choice in science, I considered myself firmly in the former camp.

In 1992, I came to the United States as a graduate student at M.I.T. I had problems understanding spoken English even at normal speed; TV was nigh incomprehensible. During my first year, I took an obligatory course in English as a Second Language, getting a C. I had tried to make a formal essay too poetic, which was one of the reasons for the low grade. But even now, definite and indefinite articles are my Achilles’ heel.

Several years later, I found myself participating in a computer role-playing game. I noticed that it was like a story but with a bare-bones, impoverished content (admittedly, by necessity, since it boggles the mind how much text one would have to write to cover all choices a player can make; interactive fiction is still a largely unexplored field). As part of a bet, I set out to put more meat around the adventures of my character, following the game’s events; the story was a short novel in the form of a diary. Overall, it wasn’t good by my current standards, but I’m glad my standards at the time were lower. The author’s judgment is subjective, but something told me I could do it. I could write a story of my own.

I took an online course in writing science fiction and fantasy, given by Marta Randall. I joined the Online Writing Workshop (or OWW). I took part in a novel-writing workshop by Kij Johnson and the Viable Paradise workshop on Martha’s Vineyard.

The latter was especially memorable. One week of a super-intense writing experience with two Tor editors, several bestselling authors, as well as a beehive of enthusiastic writers like yourself—and hardly any sleep—during a quiet period on Martha’s Vineyard, post high season. Even now, every year they announce their next submission period, I think of returning. I keep going to every VP alumni meeting at conventions that I attend, in order to recapture even just a little bit of that experience.

Pink Noise, incidentally, began as a writing exercise offered at the 10th anniversary reunion of VP graduates, during the last two days of that year’s workshop—exactly one year after I attended myself. The theme was “Fairies and Flamethrowers.”


Jennifer Walker: Is sci fi the only genre you're interested in writing?

Leonid Korogodski: I also write fantasy. One of my works in progress is a low-magic epic fantasy series, which I brought to Viable Paradise. It is set in an alternate world with two cultures in focus, one modeled on ancient China of the Warring States Period and the other on ancient Israel at the time of the appearance of Christianity and the Jewish Wars. The two meet in such a way that this alternate China plays the part of the Roman Empire. But, instead of being an empire, the alternate China has a feudal pyramid; while instead of being a kingdom, the “Israel” is an ancient republic, with elected judges. To complicate matters, the early Christianity meets, and is influenced by, not ancient Greek philosophy but the “One Hundred Schools” of the most philosophically active period in Chinese history. A host of complex characters on all sides (there are more than two) are thrown into this boiling cauldron of political, ideological, and very personal conflicts. This otherness, more so than what little magic is added to the story, is what makes it fantasy.

I like science fiction and fantasy because they allow one to create situations that are impossible in our world and/or that drive the test of character to the extreme. Despite being set in a posthuman world, where an entire mind can be “uploaded” into a digital format and where cyborgs rule (though I opted for a less dehumanizing term “parahuman”), Pink Noise is ultimately about what it means to be human. The extreme environment is there to serve as a foil, in order to lay our consciousness bare, to unveil the aspects that are hard to get at otherwise.

I don’t believe in a hard divide between science fiction and fantasy on one side and literary fiction on the other. I think there is a continuous scale of suspension of disbelief required from the reader in order to enjoy a given story. Some call for more, some call for less. But some suspension of disbelief is always needed; after all, anything fictional is, by definition, not true. I think that the center of gravity of modern fiction has been inching slowly but steadily toward the fantastical side. It may not be called fantasy or science fiction; some critics are incredibly skilled at maneuvering themselves out of applying these labels when they like a story, and even the author may go along with them. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaiden’s Tale is 100% pure science fiction, and Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife is as good an example of slipstream as anything I’ve seen. But while some lament the impending “death of the novel,” I say to them: of the realistic novel, maybe; welcome to the other world!


Jennifer Walker: Tell us about Leo the person. What is your day job, tell us about your family, non-writing interests, etc.

Leonid Korogodski: I am a single father, which probably already tells a lot. My daughter Anna is now 18, a senior in high school. She has been taking classical ballet since she was four. But dance is not her only passion. She’s now applying to colleges that have good nursing programs.

I left academia not long after getting my Ph.D. in Mathematics. Since then, I’ve been working in the software industry, most recently in the field of web access control. If you use online banking, more likely than not you’re using one of our products.

As you can probably tell from Pink Noise, I find enjoyment in learning many different fields of knowledge. I am quite passionate about some controversial science used in the story, the most radical being the Plasma Universe, an approach to space sciences that is opposed to the currently ruling gravity-dominated dogma. And I love history.

But, above all, I enjoy researching, learning something new. A famous Soviet mathematician Israel Gelfand lived to 96, merrily jogging a mile almost to his death. He liked to say that one only begins to grow old when one decides that there is nothing more worth learning. I’d put it like this: a dog is only old when it won’t learn new tricks.

Jennifer Walker: Pink Noise is way out there compared to other sci fi I've read (I almost hate using that term because I'm afraid of cheapening your work). It's incredibly imaginative and technical. Tell us about how you got this story and brought it to life. Are you trying to pass on a message to your readers through the book?

Leonid Korogodski: A famous science-fiction author Theodore Sturgeon said that 95% of anything is crap. Science fiction is no exception. But I’m glad that you have placed Pink Noise in the top 5%.

As I said before, the story is ultimately about what it means to be human. More specifically, it focuses on the subtle but fundamental differences between analog and digital intelligences (brain versus computer). What makes us different? Can computers completely replace our bodies? And what would happen if someone tries it?

Pink Noise is far from being the first story that asks these questions. The idea of the Technological Singularity (or simply, the Singularity) was first proposed by Vernor Vinge, a science-fiction author and mathematician, although he didn’t write much about it himself. The Singularity-related fiction knows such authors as Charles Stross, Peter Watts, Karl Schroeder, Greg Egan, and many others.

But, in the best traditions of post-cyberpunk, their stories typically feature non-conscious intelligent entities that have surpassed the humankind, which has to eke some living in their shadow. While I was already working on Pink Noise, I came across Blindsight by Peter Watts. This story, better than any other, argues that a non-conscious intelligent mind is not only possible but it is optimal. According to Blindsight, our consciousness is a random fluke, offering no evolutionary advantage. Not only does Peter Watts introduce an alien species as an example, but he also shows how a humanoid species could have evolved on Earth, reaching the same or higher intelligence than us but without developing consciousness.

Blindsight is a brilliant story, conveying a sense of despair deeper and more profound than anything I’ve ever read, science fiction or not. I voted for it for the Hugo Awards (alas, a happy story won that year). But I believe that it’s conceptually wrong. I say this not in any sort of adversarial spirit; I know Peter personally and we argued rather loudly about this. At least in part, Pink Noise is a response to Blindsight, the kind of response that brings about not a fight but, hopefully, a dialog in which authors speak through their stories—the kind of “fight” in which the reader wins.


Jennifer Walker: The edition you sent me for review is a piece of art in itself. The glossy illustrations, textural details on the cover, inside formatting--very elaborate. Tell us a little about what went into the design, as well as the decision to put so much into it. Will there be a paperback edition any time soon?

Leonid Korogodski: Originally meant to be a short story, Pink Noise grew into a novella. In the science-fiction field, it is impossible to publish a novella as a standalone book through a major publisher. They simply don’t publish novellas, period. (I didn’t even try.) Small press publishers, however, do publish novellas. So I set out to look for one. But it didn’t take me long to realize that, instead of looking for a small press publisher, I could become one.

I suppose it started as a tentative question in my mind. But as I began looking at what is involved, I discovered that I quite enjoy designing books. The feeling was comparable to the one I had when I discovered that maybe I could write. So I decided to make Pink Noise the first book published by my own small press company, Silverberry Press. (I have a silverberry tree in my front yard. The berries are edible and red, not silver; what is silver is the underside of the leaves—hence the logo, with the red globe at the center and the green and silver arms like those of a galaxy.)

Usually, small-press publishers print limited editions. Instead of using scarcity to increase value, I decided to produce a book with a deluxe design and also illustrations, thus adding perceived value in the eyes of the customer and compensating for the shorter length. That probably was a mistake, since the book is currently being sold mostly online, where one can’t see—and feel—the actual design. I admit that there probably was an element of pride in this too: I must have wanted in my heart to design something like that.

As to the paperback edition, that depends on how the book sells.


Jennifer Walker: Tell us about your artist. How you met him, his background, what went into the illustrations.

Leonid Korogodski: I met Borislav Varadinov (aka Guddah) on ifreelance.com. There were many interesting, capable bidders for my project. But I felt that Borislav wanted to do it not just for the money but also out of his love for science fiction in general and science-fiction illustration in particular.

Since then, we have become friends. And, as I learned during the course of work on the illustrations, that Borislav too had been in a coma once: as he was walking on a sidewalk, he was hit by a speeding car. So something very personal must be reflected in his Pink Noise illustrations.

Borislav is a native Bulgarian living in Belgium; he recently obtained the Belgian citizenship. He now works as an art teacher at the prestigious St. John’s International School in Brussels.


Jennifer Walker: How much research and preparation went into Pink Noise?

Leonid Korogodski: A lot. I have a whole library of books at home that I read just for Pink Noise, not counting the articles in science journals. From cosmology to nanotechnology to molecular biology to network science to far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics. “Soft” sciences too: I read much on the Zulu, Malayalam, and Irish cultures, since all three are intertwined in the story. I began to learn the Zulu language (my coworkers must have been amused to hear me practice the clicks), the martial arts of South India, the lore of the banshee (I didn’t realize that, contrary to the popular image, the real Irish banshee is a kindred spirit). And you can safely bet I have another library at home for that epic fantasy of mine.

I don’t write about what I know. I write about what I want to learn.

If learning prevents one from growing old, I must have stopped my aging for a while. Although the book production part—and now, the selling part—may have brought that even.

The book had to be printed in Asia, since the cost would have been prohibitively high otherwise. I had no experience in dealing with overseas companies, nor with the customs officials. For example, I should have anticipated that, being a first-time importer, my cargo would be selected for inspection at the port of entry. Since I didn’t, the books arrived to my distributor’s warehouses barely in time before the publication date.

Just one small detail of the pre-printing process. A curious thing happened to the pearlescent varnish mentioned in the print edition’s colophon (though not in the ebook edition), since it’s not found on the cover (it should have been applied over the shiny parts of the weapon). The printer in India didn’t have it available. An ink manufacturer in the same city was shipping their pearlescent varnish overseas but not to the domestic market, citing no demand. So I ordered some in the States and had it shipped to India. Someone must have made a mistake, adding a zero to the declared price, making it go over some threshold that made it necessary for the printer to pay a duty, which he obviously didn’t want to do. Explaining things to customs didn’t help. Indian customs have the grip of a lion standing over its prey. They actually bargained over the duty price. Eventually, they confiscated the varnish. The printer suggested we wait until they put it on auction and get it real cheap (for the same “no demand” reason). But it took so long that I decided to go without the pearlescent varnish.


Jennifer Walker: Tell us about your writing process. Do you outline in advance, randomly start writing, or something in between?

Leonid Korogodski: I use an outline of sorts, but it’s in my head. It’s a major pain to put it down on paper, for two reasons. One is it’s non-linear in nature. And the other one is that the landscape of the mind is a dynamic thing. I’d say the story (or its outline) is boiling somewhere in my subconscious until ready to surface. But even when it does, it still keeps simmering and changing as I bring it into focus. Sometimes I see a new way it could go.

Usually I start by selecting the research materials and studying them while letting the subconscious process go on, occasionally peeking in to bring this or that character out in the clear, this or that plot element—essentially, meditating on them while doing research. I begin putting words on paper (or rather, into a computer file) only when the story is almost crystallized. I feel the time is up when researching becomes a chore and I am anxious to start writing.


Jennifer Walker: Tell us about your next writing project.

Leonid Korogodski: I have that humongous epic fantasy I mentioned, which I had to postpone working on to finish Pink Noise (at the time, I thought it wouldn’t take too long to write what looked like a short story). Now it seems I’ll have to postpone it again to write a prequel to Pink Noise. At some point, I got an idea of how Pink Noise could be expanded into a novel, but that would require introducing a character so complex, with such rich history that it called not for just one but several prequels.

With the working title of Foiled, the story will be set in the same world as Pink Noise. But where Pink Noise concentrated on the inner psyche of very few characters, Foiled will concern itself more with the parahuman society. It will be easier to get into, too, through the eyes of an outsider character: an Amish boy whisked to Venus by a peculiar set of circumstances. There, he gets caught up in a complex intrigue, making some unexpected friends his age and very powerful enemies.


Jennifer Walker: Who are some of your favorite authors to read? Have any of them influenced your own writing?

Leonid Korogodski: I see you left the hardest question for the last. When I was a little child, I received Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings as a gift, in Russian translation. Here was a story that talked about fantastical beings, like elves, orcs, dwarves, yet not like in a fairy tale. The fact that the world of the story was presented so completely and so seriously, as if it were real, with politics (where do you see politics in a fairy tale?) and all its complexity—this fact was a major discovery for the young me. Without it, perhaps I’d never have started that first novel many years later.

Stylistically, I still see some influence of Guy Gavriel Kay, at least the poetry in prose. Also, the idea of creating alternate worlds based on our existing cultures, with little magic involved, first came to him. Of his work, I like Tigana and The Lions of al-Rassan best. But I’m yet to read his latest work, set—drum roll, please!—in alternate China. George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, besides being an excellent read, motivated me to start that epic fantasy. I already talked about Peter Watts’ Blindsight. But I would like to add Karl Schroeder’s work, both his Virga series and the early novels (Ventus, Permanence, Lady of Mazes). I have only discovered them recently, so they didn’t have much time to influence me yet. But they gave me food for thought. So time will tell!

Book Review: Pink Noise, by Leonid Korogodski

Pink Noise: A Posthuman Tale, by Leonid Korogodski

Hardcover: 192 pages
Publisher: Silverberry Press (August 29, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0984360824
Rating (1 to 5 *): *****

Pink Noise Book Review

Nathi is dead. He gave up his body five centuries ago to live as a posthuman, his mind and memories transferred into digital form. He is one of the best brain surgeons of the day, and he is tasked with healing a comatose girl. She seems near impossible to save, and he melds his mind with hers to delve into her memories and see what is wrong from the inside.

In the process of trying to revive her, Nathi has an awakening of his own about his servitude. In the young girl's mind, he finds much more than he ever expected and soon finds himself teamed up with  her to survive an attempt to escape their confinement while battle rages in the skies above.

Leonid Korogodski's Pink Noise  is an exciting and imaginative voyage far into the future, showing us where our future very well may go many hundreds of years from now. A hard core science fiction, this book is not for the faint of heart or casual reader--there is some disturbing violence, although limited, and the language is heavily laden with physics and science terms that sometimes makes it hard to follow for those who are not used to it. However, the story comes through loud and clear, along with the message it contains.

The edition I was given for review is a particularly beautiful and well-designed hardback with glossy, thought-provoking illustrations by Borislav Varadinov, a finalist in the AntiMotion: FUTR WRLD digital art contest. At the end of the story are pages and pages of fascinating notes on the science behind the story, as well as the colophon describing the various fonts used. While the book is short, it is a good read and will look beautiful on your shelf for years to come.

 Be sure to come back over the next two days for an interview with Leonid Korogodski and a guest post from him!

Two book give-aways this week!

From our friend, Linda Weaver Clarke:

1. Interview with Children’s Author Sherrill S. Cannon


Book Give-Away December 6 – 13: for those interested in Santa’s Birthday Gift or Peter and the Whimper-Whineys, leave a comment about this interview with your e-mail. We will have two drawings, one for each book so list your preference. U.S. and Canada.

Post a comment at http://lindaweaverclarke.blogspot.com/.



2. Interview with Children’s Author Shirley Raye Redmond

Book Give-Away December 9 - 16: for those interested in Cities of Gold or Write a Marketable Children's Book in 7 Weeks, leave a comment about this interview with your e-mail. Make sure you list which book you’re interested in. International. “Thousands of European treasure seekers scoured the New World in search of untold riches. Some were lucky beyond their wildest dreams!”

Post a comment at http://lindaweaverclarke.blogspot.com/.

Author Interview: Jack Gilhooly

I hope you took a few minutes to read my review of Christmas Village (http://mcneilandrichards.com/) yesterday! Today, let's learn a little about the author, Jack Gilhooly.

Jennifer Walker: Tell us about the other books you have written and where we can buy them.


Jack Gilhooly: I have written three novels under the name John Westin. They are all humorous in tone. The Spy Book (just published) is about an American professor and graduate student whom the Soviet Union manipulates into helping them figure out what can be done about the collapsing Soviet economy in 1990. When the prof arranges for the secret material to be published as a book in the U.S., the Soviets are irate, and soon Soviet agents, the F.B.I. and a rival professor are all out to get the professor and the student.

The other two Westin novels are The Anchor War, about a battle for a $2.5-million-a-year TV anchor job as the war on Iraq wages in 1991, and Stealing the White House, about a losing candidate's attempt to steal the presidency in the Electcoral College.


Jennifer Walker: Where did you get the idea for Christmas Village?


Jack Gilhooly: In our house, we have set up Christmas villages for years, going back to when we purchased an It's a Wonderful Life Village. I have often thought how interesting it would be if I could actually visit inside a little village like that. I thought it had the makings of a story children would love.


Jennifer Walker: What made you decide to become a writer and when did you start?


Jack Gilhooly: I have been writing ever since I was about twenty-five years old or so. Did a lot of writing over the years (I am sixty-six now). Always loved writing humor. I would sit at the typewriter and laugh as I wrote. Now I am publishing much of the writing I did.


Jennifer Walker: What part of writing is challenging for you?


Jack Gilhooly: Well, let's see. Revising is challenging. Proofreading is like trying to find an ant in a totally dark room. Marketing the books is, for me, about as much fun as heart surgery. But when you see the final book ... it is all worth it.


Jennifer Walker: What is your writing process? Do you outline first or just start writing, do you have any writing habits or quirks, etc.?


Jack Gilhooly: I usually have a general idea of where I want the story to go, but I don't outline in detail because I want the story and the dialogue to be spontaneous. I will often sete aside a novel for a long time, then come back to it and decide that it has possibilities. Then I will finish it.


Jennifer Walker: Do you work with a writing mentor or critique group to improve your writing? How does it work for you?


Jack Gilhooly: I have usually worked alone. Years ago I took a creative writing class at Harvard. First semester, the professor loved my writing. The second semester they changed professors and she hated my writing.

I think joining a writing group would be very enjoyable, as long as you don't let the criticism of others stifle your creativity.


Jennifer Walker: Which is harder: writing a book or marketing it? Why?


Jack Gilhooly: As I mentioned, marketing a book is harder for me. Like trying to sell ice to an eskimo.


Jennifer Walker: Which is your favorite holiday, and why?


Jack Gilhooly: Christmas. From celebrating the birth of Christ to watching the movie White Christmas to family dinners and of course Christmas villages, I like it all.


Jennifer Walker: Tell us about a Christmas tradition in your family and what makes it special.


Jack Gilhooly: My wife and the friends who help her decorate elaborately, inside and out, every Christmas. It makes it special. And as I have told my wife, it is like living in a float. I sometimes think she spends more on decorations than Macy's does.

Book Review: Christmas Village, by Jack Gilhooly

Christmas Village, by Jack Gilhooly

Paperback: 88 pages
Publisher: McNeil & Richards (September 13, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0982560214
Rating (1 to 5 *): ****




 
Christmas Village Book Review


Christmas is a magical time for everyone, but especially for children. For Amanda and Rudy, Christmas time means visiting their grandparents. Grandma makes scrumptious Christmas cookies, and Grandpa sets up a delightful Christmas village that's just a tiny bit different every year. One night, while spying on the presents under the tree and playing with the lights that illuminate the village, Amanda and Rudy suddenly find themselves transported to Belle Center--Grandpa's tiny village.

Amanda and Rudy find they have a new family, who thinks they are just being silly when the children insist they belong in another, larger world. Strange things are happening in the village, and Amanda and Rudy know exactly what's going on, and it has something to do with their real family.

Jack Gilhooly's Christmas Village is a fun and lighthearted holiday story. I think many a child has wondered what it would be like to live in one of those adorable Christmas villages. Gilhooly injects some humor into the story, and the interactions between the characters is fun and genuine. I felt there was a little too much time spent in scenes with the adults to really appeal to children, and I think some of the humor might go over their heads. However, these scenes are fun for the adult reading to the child. Overall, Christmas Village is a sweet read for kids in the Christmas season.

Want to learn more? Come back tomorrow for an interview with the author, Jack Gilhooly!

This week's book give-away!

Here is this week's international book give-away from our friend, Linda Weaver Clarke!


Book Give-Away November 8 - 15: for those interested in Little Shepherd, leave a comment about the interview with author Cheryl Malandrinos
 with your e-mail at http://lindaweaverclarke.blogspot.com/.

Little Shepherd is the story of Obed, a young shepherd boy in the hills outside Bethlehem on the night of Christs birth. After the angels appear, Obed is hesitant to follow the others to see the newborn King. Hes afraid something might happen to his flock while hes away. His father convinces him to go, but Obed spends much of the time anxious over his sheep. After a visit with the Holy Family and some surprises upon his return to the field, Obed discovers it is a night of miracles. This book is geared toward readers ages 4 to 8.

Author Interview: Aggie Villanueva

Oops... I feel so silly. I posted Aggie's interview on my writing blog at http://jenniferlwalker.blogspot.com/2010/10/author-interview-aggie-villanueva.html! Be sure to read it and the comments...she is answering your questions about book promotion!

Book Review: The Rewritten World, by Aggie Villanueva

The Rewritten Word: How to Sculpt Literary Art, No Matter the Genre, by Aggie Villanueva

Paperback: 60 pages
Publisher: Cielos Rojos Publishing (October 6, 2010)
ISBN-10: 098259142X
Rating: (1 to 5 *): ****





Book Review: The Rewritten Word, by Aggie Villanueva


Writers are told from grammar school on that in order to polish our work, we need to rewrite, revise, repeat. However, not everyone knows what it is they're supposed to be doing when they rewrite a piece. Never fear! The Rewritten Word: How to Sculpt Literary Art no Matter the Genre, by Aggie Villanueva, can help.

Aggie's book is a quick read that can fit in your pocket. However, it is packed with useful information, with a step-by-step guide on what to look for when you rewrite. It even includes examples and instructions on how to take a piece you have written and make it better. Her techniques apply to all types of writing, from fiction to web articles.

While the author may seem a touch self-aggrandizing at times, the book is so well balanced with her humbling herself by pointing out where she could have done better with her own writing that it's hard to fault her for it. As she points out, every piece of writing can improve with rewriting, even those written by the best.

The Rewritten Word: How to Sculpt Literary Art no Matter the Genre is an excellent tool for any writer who needs help in making their writing shine.

Stay tuned for an interview with the author, Aggie Villanueva!

Guest Post: Aggie Villanueva

Today, we have a special treat! A guest post from Aggie Villanueva, a long-time published author, book promotor, and expert on writing and writing for the web. She graciously agreed to share some of her expertise with us. This is part two of a three-part white paper called "Writing for the Web". You can purchase the rest of this paper, or any of her other papers on writing, at http://promotionalacarte.com/white-paper-reports/. I will be interviewing her and reviewing her book, The Rewritten Word: How to Sculpt Literary Art, No Matter the Genre, later this week, so come on back!

Writing for the Web:

Nobody Reads Anymore; They Scan.

Make it Easy for Them

Nobody reads anymore; at least at first glance. They scan.

Make it easy for them to scan on screen, or a mobile device, and decide in a moment if they want to read your post. They’ll love you for it and most likely come back the next time they need to find your niche information in a hurry.

Make it Easy to Scan

 Try to keep the overall article short and to the point. Mobile devices load slower than computers, but even laptop users get frustrated with long load times.

 Use lots of bulleted/numbered list. This is especially important if your blog post is over 300 words. If you’re covering information intensive topics it is much easier to scan itemized lists.

 Use Subheadings. I’d also add, make the subheading slightly larger than normal to be easily seen at a glance.

 Break it up. Break up long paragraphs into easy-to-read chunks. This goes against everything taught in our English classes of old. But when writing for the Web break up a paragraph, if possible, after only 2-3 sentences, even if your are continuing the same thought.

 Never use long blocks of text on your blog. Keep the mobile reader in mind. Nowadays 50% or so of your visitors are reading it on a mobile device. A long paragraph would run two-three screens on a iPhone.

 Get rid of most white space. This causes added scrolling. I used to do page design and typesetting. Back then, when people read from a virtual page we were taught to use white space as a form of graphics without an image. Not so in a blog post. The only white space I’d recommend is what is freed up by indented and bulleted lists.

 Eliminate the use of symbols such as *, or even smart quotes and accented letters such as á because many mobile device browsers don’t support them.

Writing a blog for the web is a whole different animal than the writing we were taught in school. But it's not so hard if we just keep our reader in mind, which is, after all, the oldest and wisest of writing instruction.

Thank you for your great advice, Aggie!

Book Review: Tales from the Gundarland, by Hank Quense

Tales From Gundarland: Eight humorous stories from the land of the incongruous, by Hank Quense

Paperback: 326 pages

Publisher: CreateSpace (June 25, 2010)
ISBN-10: 1452871264
Rating (1 to 5 *): ****




Book Review: Tales from the Gundarland


Elves, dwarves, dwelves, yuks, trolls...all living in peaceful harmony? Well, maybe not so much, but they sure have some interesting adventures! Tales from the Gundarland, by Hand Quense, comprises several short stories and two novellas set in this fantastical world.

Quense specializes in humor writing, and it's obvious he has a sense of humor that inspired each one of these stories. Whether it's the story of a dwarf named Romeo and his star-crossed lover, an elf named Juliet, or a musical competition where combatitiveness and cuteness are part of the scoring, or a clumsy hero who saves the day despite himself, each story has its own rich cast of characters who take the reader on a fun adventure. While some are inspired by traditional tales, others (as far as I know) are purely the author's invention.

Hank Quense's stories put a unique, fresh and fun spin on the typical fantasy tales. The format allows for the reader to read a whole story in a short period of time, but they are just enough to leave you wanting to read more about the characters. They are complex, quirky and know how to have a good time...the sort of book I love to read in the bathtub!

Disclosure of Material Connection: The author provided a free copy of this book for review purposes.

Author Interview: Hank Quense

Today we'll learn a little more about Hank Quense, whose guest post discussed the trials and tribulations of writing humor. Be sure to come back to read my review of his book, Tales from the Gundarland!


Jennifer Walker: Tell us about your other writing projects, past, present and future.



Hank Quense: To date, over forty short stories and fiction writing articles and four books have been published. Fool's Gold is a short novel that retells the ancient Rhinegold myth as scifi rather than fantasy. Tunnel Vision is a collection of twenty previous published short stories. Build a Better Story is an ebook on fiction writing. Finally, there is Tales From Gundarland.

My next book is a novel, Zaftan Entrepreneurs. In it, an alien mining ship discovers Gundarland. That will become available around the holidays. At the moment I'm working on a novella based on several of Shakespeare's works. The main characters are Hamlet, Othello and Falstaff. The plots (sort of) follow Shakespeare's plots.



Jennifer Walker: What was your inspiration for creating Gundarland?


Hank Quense: It wasn't inspired. It just grew out fantasy stories I wrote. Each one added a bit more knowledge about the place. Over a few years, I ended up with a geography, cities, races, politics etc. Despite being located in a parallel universe, there is a lot of commonality with our world. The people and the politicians certainly act similarly.



Jennifer Walker: Why did you choose to write a collection of short stories, rather than one novel?


Hank Quense: I didn't chose it. I kept writing short stories and novellas that intrigued me and, after I had a pile of them, I decided producing a collection was better than trying to sell them one at a time.



Jennifer Walker: Do you have interest in writing any other genres?


Hank Quense: Nope. Humorous fantasy and scifi is all I do and all I have an interest in doing. Occasionally, I write an article on some aspect of fiction writing or marketing books, but that is like work while writing fiction is fun. My only other writing interest is blog posts. I've created the Faux News Network as a way to lampoon our modern world. I have fun writing these satiric pieces.


Jennifer Walker: Whatare your favorite books to read?


Hank Quense: Humorous scifi and fantasy. I also read historical fiction


Jennifer Walker: What was the hardest part for you, writing the book or publishing and marketing it? Why?


Hank Quense: Marketing it. I believe my biggest problem currently is that I'm unknown. Getting a reputation as a humorous writer, one that's worth plunking down coins on a book, is my toughest gig right now


Jennifer Walker: At what point in your life did you decide to become a writer, and when did you conceive this book?


Hank Quense: On my fiftieth birthday. I took stock of the situation and decided it was only a matter of time until I got kicked out of my sales manager office to make room for a much younger worker. That's when I decided I want to write fiction in my next career.


Jennifer Walker: Do you work with a mentor or writing group to discuss your ideas or polish your work?


Hank Quense: I'm a member of Critters workshop and an other smaller group of writers who critique each other's work.


Jennifer Walker: Where is your favorite place in the world to visit?


Hank Quense: Rome. After that it's either Paris or Barcelona. I can't make up my mind which one is better. I'll have to spend a few more days in each one to decide. My favorite North American spot is Quebec City.


Jennifer Walker: If Gundarland existed on Earth, where and when would it be?


Hank Quense: It'd be one of the British Isles. In fact, I strongly believe the British Isles are modeled after Gundarland and no one ever paid me a licensing fee.



Other good stuff to know about Hank and his work::

Youtube link to trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-kOiZEi1Xw

Where to buy:

The book is available at Amazon, Amazon UK, B&N and Smashwords. Bookstores can order it (ISBN 9781452871264), or visit Hank's website at http://hankquense.com/TFG-main.html.

Guest Post: Hank Quense

I recently read Hank Quense's Tales From Gundarland: Eight humorous stories from the land of the incongruous. While I work on my review, here's a guest post to whet your appetite a bit. Author Hank Quense talks about writing humorous and satiric fiction. Much of his post is based on Chapter 8 from his ebook on fiction writing, Build a Better Story.

Humorous stories are difficult to write. Besides developing the humor, these stories must have all the other elements of a non-humorous story. To state it differently, a comedic story must have a protagonist, a plot problem and an antagonist. A big reason why many humorous stories fail is because the author assumes the addition of humor will negate the need for one or more of the other story elements. This is always a fatal assumption.

A major part of the problem with writing humor is that humor is very subjective; what one reader sees as hilarious, another will view as stupid. Thus no matter how good a humor writer you are, you always have the disadvantage that many readers will think your stuff is dumb. While this caveat applies to all writing, it is more pronounced with humor and satire.

A mistake I see a lot in short stories, and one that I'm prone to make, is a failure to tip off the reader early on that the story is humorous. The author has to let the reader know this at the beginning of the story. If the story starts off with a serious tone and then changes to a humorous one, the reader will get confused and many of them will get annoyed. Just as annoying is a story that starts off humorous and then bogs down in a serious plot problem. This happens frequently with movies. They start off hysterically funny and then degenerate into a more serious tone that has only a few smiles in the second half of the movie.

Humor doesn't come from mocking a character's disabilities or deformities. A reader will see this as cruelty, not humor or comedy. Humor comes from oddball behavior caused by bizarre inner characteristics in one or more of the story's characters, not through their physical appearances.

A writer can use oblique references to get across these physical deformities and disabilities without actually describing them. As an example, I used the Wyrd Sisters (from Shakespeare's MacBeth) in a short story. The sisters in my story are middle-aged, ugly and obese, but I never directly mentioned these features during the story. Instead I mentioned their tent-sized robes and used the panicky reaction of men when they met the sisters. These reactions told the reader a lot about how the sisters looked without actually describing them.

Like all fiction, the humorous story is about characters. As far as the character's physical appearance goes, that is straightforward and easy. The real effort goes into the inner workings of the character. A comedy character needs quirks, eccentricities and insane motivation. Once the plot drives the character into a serious situation, the quirks and eccentricities take over and force the character to respond in ways that normal people would never consider. The knack to doing this is to visualize what a normal character would do in a certain situation and then twist it to what an un-normal character would do. As an example, consider the basic rescue story involving a hero and a princess. Rescuing the princess is what would happen in an ordinary adventure story and what readers expect to happen. Twist that around and, suddenly, the princess is insulted to be rescued by a commoner and voluntarily returns to her captivity until a noble rescuer shows up. That unexpected turn of events produces humor.

In another story I used two traditional Western heroes (Zorro and the Lone Ranger) and changed them into characters with few if any chances of winning. That gave me opportunities to exploit their situations for a few laughs.

In summary, humor writing involves developing characters with bizarre ways of thinking and acting. The author then throws those characters into situations that will allow the characters' bizarre behavior to take center stage.

Visit Hank's website for more information on his writing and his books. His latest, Tales From Gundarland has become a best seller on the planet Zaftan 31B

This week's book give-away!

From our friend, Linda Weaver Clarke:


Interview with Historical Romance Author Sarah M. Eden

Book Give-Away October 18 - 25: for those interested in Courting Miss Lancaster, leave a comment about this interview with your e-mail at http://lindaweaverclarke.blogspot.com/. U.S. and Canada.

Courting Miss Lancaster is an historical romance set in the era of Jane Austen, Napoleon, and Mad King George. It will make readers laugh and sigh, but probably mostly laugh. And, of course, it has a happy ending.

This week's book giveaway!

From our friend, Linda Weaver Clarke:

Interview with Mystery Writer Linda Faulkner


Book Give-Away October 4 - 11: for those interested in Second Time Around, leave a comment about this interview with your e-mail. U.S. and Canada. Visit http://lindaweaverclarke.blogspot.com.

Second Time Around was an Award Finalist for best Mystery/Suspense fiction 2010. This mystery is set in the Rocky Mountains of western Montana. Timmie Campbell asks herself what she’s going to do when the dead body she stumbles across winds up belonging to her father, the father she thought abandoned her in infancy. Her mother has been lying for years about her father’s abandonment, about him not contacting them, about a lot of things. Unfortunately, Timmie can’t dwell on her mother’s deception because bodies begin piling up and she needs to stop the killer before he wipes out her entire family.

Blog Goddess Award!

I am so honored to have received the Blog Goddess Award from Suzanne Alicie! Thank you, Suzanne for your recognition of my work. This blog is a lot of fun, and I'm happy to give a little promotion to my fellow authors.

Author Interview: Cheryl Landmark

Today, we have the opportunity to get to know up-and-coming author Cheryl Landmark. Be sure to read my review of her debut novel, Wind and Fire!


Author Interview: Cheryl Landmark

Jennifer Walker: What attracts you to the Fantasy genre? Do you plan to write in any others?

Cheryl Landmark: I've always been fascinated by the rich, exciting worlds of sorcery and adventure that can be created in the Fantasy genre. You have the freedom to invent worlds and characters that are only limited by your imagination. You're not restricted to human limitations and conventions. At the same time, though, I think your characters, no matter what their magical powers, still have to retain some human qualities, such as compassion, kindness, humour, the ability to experience doubt and anxiety, etc. They can't just be flawless, invincible super beings who simply flick their magical fingers and destroy evil creatures right and left without feeling the slightest qualm or twinge of terror. I also really enjoy reading mystery, suspense and paranormal novels and have tried my hand at writing in those genres as well. I have a young adult novel that I self-published last year about a young woman's adventures on her father's trapline in Northern Ontario, Canada.


Jennifer Walker: What is your writing process like? Do you outline in advance, sit down and just start writing, somewhere in between? How do you keep all the facts straight in your fantasy world?


Cheryl Landmark: Compared to other authors, I'm probably quite undisciplined in my writing process! I don't sit down and outline my book step by step. I don't set myself a strict schedule and force myself to write, especially if my muse is resting and not urging me to get my thoughts down on paper. I usually start out with an idea for a story, or sometimes simply a character, and then sit down in front of my computer. The story then takes on a life of its own and literally evolves as I start typing. I can't really explain it, but as I create each scene or character, they just seem to lead right on into the next ones. That's not to say that I don't hit snags or roadblocks every now and then. Sometimes, I know what I want the scene to be, but I have difficulty getting it to come out just right. Once I'm past that stage, then the story starts to unfold again. As for keeping all the facts straight, that entails a lot of going back and re-reading and re-writing to make sure everything flows the way it's supposed to.


Jennifer Walker: At what point in your life did you decide you wanted to become an author, and what made you write this particular book?


Cheryl Landmark: From as far back as I can remember, reading and writing have been my passions. Even as a young child in elementary school, I was constantly scribbling short stories and poems on scraps of paper and reading them to my friends. As I grew older, I started to write full-length novels in many different genres...romance, mystery, young adult and suspense in the vein of Victoria Holt and Phyllis Whitney. But, it was fantasy that really began to pique my interest and gave full rein to my fertile imagination. I decided to invent a mystical, magical, fantastical world of my own, and thus Wind and Fire was born.



Jennifer Walker: Which is the hardest part for you: writing the book, or getting it published and marketing it? Why?


Cheryl Landmark: Definitely marketing and promoting is the hardest part for me. I'm by nature a very shy, modest introvert and it's difficult for me to go out into the public and urge perfect strangers to buy my book. But, realistically, I know that it's not enough just to have someone publish your book and then expect readers to buy it in droves. If only it were that easy! I'm quickly learning that you have to use all the avenues you can to promote and market it. It's getting a little easier the more I do it, but I definitely prefer the writing part!



Jennifer Walker: To what do you attribute your ability to tell a good story and write such fun characters?


Cheryl Landmark: What a wonderful compliment, Jennifer! Thank you. It's encouraging to hear that you like my story and characters as much as I do. I guess I just possess a bottomless well of imagination. My muse always seems to be filling my head with ideas that I simply must put down on paper. And, even though my good guys are constantly battling the bad guys, I don't want the story to be just about darkness and evil and horror. There has to be moments of humour and levity in there too to lighten the atmosphere and provide some relief and balance. I try to create interesting interactions between my characters.



Jennifer Walker: What is your next writing project?


Cheryl Landmark: Another fantasy, which is almost completed, and a humourous dog detective series. In addition, I have two boxes full of partially completed and fully completed (albeit, rough draft) manuscripts that I hope to polish up and turn into finished novels some day.



Jennifer Walker: What do you do when you aren't writing novels? Do you do other writing, work a day job, have hobbies?


Cheryl Landmark: I have a full-time Monday to Friday job as a sales analyst for a lottery corporation, so sometimes it's difficult to strike a good balance between work life, home life and writing. I live in Northern Ontario, Canada, which means I get to enjoy tons of wilderness hiking, snowshoeing and canoeing. My other hobbies include voracious, non-stop reading and challenging jigsaw puzzles.



Jennifer Walker: Do you have any authors who have served as inspirations for you? Do you have any influences on your writing?


Cheryl Landmark: Anne McCaffrey is one of my favourite science fiction/fantasy authors. I fell in love with her dragons the first time I read "Dragonriders of Pern" and have hungrily devoured many more of the books in the Pern series. The dragons' ability to interact and talk to their riders is one of the elements that really intrigued and fascinated me. Other fantasy authors I enjoy are Terry Brooks and Terry Goodkind and, of course, J.R.R. Tolkien. I've read all of the Harry Potter books (twice) and the Twilight saga by Stephanie Meyers. Anything that smacks of the magical and mystical piques my interest.


Jennifer Walker: Tell us about your family. Are they supportive of your writing?


Cheryl Landmark: My hubby, though he loves to tease me sometimes about my writing, is actually very supportive and tries to help where he can in promoting it. He often refers to himself as a "writer's widow" whenever I disappear into my writing room. Fortunately for me, he keeps me grounded in reality; otherwise, I could easily become lost in my fantasy worlds. We don't have any children, except for the fur-covered, four-legged doggy kind, so finding time to write is a little easier than it probably would be if I had little ones running in every five minutes to get me to do Mommy things.


Jennifer Walker: If you had to choose your last meal, what would it be?

Cheryl Landmark: Hmm, let's see now. How about a juicy ribeye steak smothered in sauteed onions and mushrooms, a baked potato loaded with sour cream and chives, a Caesar salad, and a big slice of lemon meringue pie for dessert? Hey, if it's my last meal, who cares about calories!

Thank you so much, Jennifer, for giving me this opportunity to introduce myself to all the readers out there!


JW: And thank you, Cheryl, for the opportunity to review your book and get to know you better! It's been fun having you here on A Cup of Coffee and a Good Book.

Book Review: Wind and Fire, by Cheryl Landmark

Wind and Fire, by Cheryl Landmark

Paperback: 232 pages
Publisher: Asylett Press (May 1, 2010)
ISBN-10: 1934337706
Rating (1 to 5 *): ****



Wind and Fire Book Review

Tenya has lived a sheltered life, toiling away the potato fields and performing household chores for her father and stepmother—a classic Cinderella. However, rather than being whisked away to a fantastical ball, she is instead kidnapped by a horrible old hag and a dull brute of a giant. The hag informs Tenya she is taking her to Zardonne, Master of the Dark Rift. Happily, Tenya is soon rescued by an eccentric by the name of Sindril, who brings the news that Tenya’s birth mother is alive and well—and in need of her help.

Tenya and Sindril’s journey takes them toward the Plain of Naryn, where Zardonne’s abode lies, along with the tower of ice that imprisons her mother. However, this is not just a journey to save a damsel in distress. It is a journey of a 19-year-old girl who does menial chores to become a woman with powers she never dreamed of.

In Wind and Fire, Cheryl Landmark has crafted your classic fantasy novel: a quest, a damsel in distress, a super evil bad guy, fantastical creatures, and really cool good guys. As in all of my favorite novels, Landmark writes characters that you want to know—they are good to each other (well, except the bad guys), have fun interactions and have good senses of humor. They grow in the process, and the world she created is one I liked spending time in. I do have to complain that the book needs better editing, particularly in comma and adjective use—a common problem with small presses. However, that doesn’t stand in the way of a good story, delightful characters and a fun read.

Material disclaimer: the author of this book provided a free copy for the purpose of this review.

Guest blog with Linda Weaver Clarke

Today, we welcome Linda Weaver Clarke for a guest blog. Her latest book, Mayan Intrigue, was released today, so please check it out.

Romance VS Mystery!

 by Linda Weaver Clarke

I have written five historical romance novels but have changed to mystery. The writing process between romance and mystery is quite a change with a completely different mind set. It’s so different from telling a love story. With romance, you plan out the plot around the meeting of a couple. As you write, you develop some sort of charisma between the characters, making the reader feel excited that one day they're going to hit it off and fall in love. You, as the reader, know what the outcome will be. But with a mystery, the reader is in the dark. The author has to come up with a plot that no one knows about until towards the end of the story and hope they haven’t figured it out. In a mystery, you may or may not allow your reader to know who the bad guys are, according to whether it’s just a mystery or mystery suspense. Do you know the difference between a mystery and a mystery suspense novel? In a mystery, when a knock is heard at the door, the reader doesn't know who's behind it. With mystery suspense, the reader knows who's behind the door and yells to the heroine, "Don't open the door!"

Anasazi Intrigue is the first book in a mystery adventure series called “The Adventures of John and Julia Evans.” It’s about a devastating flood that takes out several homes in a small town, the importance of preserving ancient artifacts, and a few puzzling and mysterious events. Julia is a reporter, and when she finds out about a possible poison spill that kills some fish and neighbor's pets, she has a feeling that something isn’t quite right. Before she realizes what is happening, Julia finds out that this incident is much bigger and more dangerous than she thought. With dead fish, a devastating flood, and miscreants chasing John and Julia, they have their hands full.

Artifact theft is a very intriguing subject. That’s why I call it the Intrigue series. In my research, I found that archaeological thievery is becoming more and more of a problem every year. Did you know that looting is only second to selling illegal drugs? While researching the second book in this series, Mayan Intrigue, my eyes were opened to the problems they have in southern Mexico. When an ancient ruin is discovered, it doesn’t take long for thieves to take it apart. The reason why is because the Mayas used astrological alignments when planning their city. Looters have learned the layout of the Mayan cities so they know where to dig. With this knowledge, they can loot a sacred temple in a few days. I also found that artifact theft in Mexico has been taken over by drug dealers from Columbia. In other words, since organized crime has taken over, there is also an increase of violence.

Mayan Intrigue was released today, on August 30th, and I’m having a celebration with a book give-away at my Blog at http://lindaweaverclarke.blogspot.com. Mayan Intrigue is about the discovery of a priceless artifact that puts Julia’s life in great danger. While on assignment for the newspaper, John and Julia try to enjoy a romantic vacation among the Mayan ruins, but when Julia accidentally comes upon a couple suspicious men exchanging an item, she quickly turns and leaves but it’s too late. Before John and Julia realize what's going on, they find themselves running for their lives through the jungles of the Yucatan. To read an excerpt from each of my books, you can visit www.lindaweaverclarke.com.