"The Tribulations of Ross Young, Supernat PA" Review

Let’s move from one book by A.J. Sherwood with a super-long title to another: “The Tribulations of Ross Young, Supernat PA”. This one, too, is a comedic male-male erotica book which was originally a collection of shorter stories which bring the two main characters, human Ross Young and vampire Glenn Reagan, closer and closer together as all progresses. It’s just as much fun to read as the last of her books I wrote about (“How I Stole the Princess’s White Knight and Turned Him to Villainy”), even if it’s more urban fantasy than high fantasy. It’s just as weird, just as fun, and just as re-readable, at least for me.

According to the foreword of the book, the whole story was originally written as a series of shorts for the author’s newsletter recipients. As A.J. Sherwood never really intended to publish the story in book form — despite now having done so —, she felt free to dive deep into all kinds of fan fiction ideas and all kinds of references, be it the ‘Aunt May’s’ gas station where Ross works in the first story or titles like “This Isn’t the Dog You’re Looking For”.
When the author compiled the stories for publication, she added a few extra stories, describing certain events from the stories from Glenn’s perspective (as the main story is strictly told by Ross, not changing viewpoints between chapters as in “How I Stole…”). Like this, we get some fun extra stories.

Now for the story as a such. Ross Young is a college student who works the better-paid night-shift at a gas station. He’s taken some time off college to be able to build up some savings for the rest of his classes and that’s why he has taken the job in the first place. While working there, he’s already realised that there are some strange, supernatural creatures coming in. He’s grown used to it and deals well with vampires, werewolves, fairies, and many other beings in the same way he would deal with regular customers. To him, they’re nothing else, and he’s all about customer service — and deadpan reactions, which also endears him to quite some of them. He’s unshakeable, but doesn’t try to use the knowledge to blackmail anyone, which endears him even further to the supernatural community.
One night, a vampire comes in and offers him a new job. Glenn Reagan, the clan master of a clan made up of different supernatural beings, needs a new Function — a human PA or secretary who can organise things for the clan and make sure all runs its course in daylight as well as at night. Not to mention that there’s a lot of shenanigans to get clan members out of. Ross is hesitant about it — after all, he wants to finish his education, so how could he take a job like that? After a fire elemental destroys the gas station, though (and Ross only escapes through luck, prior achievements, and a vampire carrying him out of the still hot building), Ross takes the job he’s been offered and becomes the new Function to the clan. Glenn promises to support him through college as he, too, has an interest in Ross being even better at his job.
From there, more shenanigans happen, some lighthearted — like the werewolves of the clan adopting all the dogs from the local shelter —, some less so — like Ross being kidnapped by one of Glenn’s old enemies. Yet, all of these stories also serve to deepen the relationship between Ross and Glenn, leading to a well-developed romance in the end.
The clan is made up of many weird, yet friendly members who represent different supernatural species: there’s a full pack of werewolves, there’s kobolds who man the garage, there’s dwarves who do construction work, there’s a witch and a wizard (not just a difference in gender, but in magic use), there’s different mythological beings from all over the world.

Ross feels drawn to Glenn — and not just for the other man’s looks, either — from the very beginning, yet he fights the attraction for quite a while, worried first about a relationship with a vampire, then about a relationship with his boss (which could turn horrid, no doubt about that). Both can be intimidating, but both can also be good. It’s only well into the stories that they start dating (unsuccessfully at first, thanks to the clan) and only at the end when they get serious about their relationship.
The relationship also doesn’t feel forced. Glenn cares for Ross as he’s caring for all in his clan and Ross is caring for Glenn as a PA and as a friend, not just because ‘he’s hot’ — although Glenn is. As they grow closer, their relationship shifts, as it would for everyone.

There are some stories which include more bloody scenes, but they do not take the stories as a such out of their ‘comedic and comfy’ zone. Nothing is described in too much detail, the bloody things happen, but they’re not in the main focus (again, very much as in “How I Stole…”).
For me, the book has made its way on my regular rereading list, it’s a good one to curl up with at the pool or on the couch on a rainy day with a beverage of your choice. I have read into it again several times, choosing the stories in the order in which I wanted to read them after having finished the book once. They’re still fun, Ross’s internal comments on the situation are still hilarious, and the developing relationship between him and Ross is still just so sweet.
There’s actually only one sex scene in this one, so it’s much easier to skip if that is what you want to do. Of course, you can also read it, it’s good. It is, at least nominally, an erotica and not a romance story through this, but it also makes for a great romance story if you’re more into those.

On the whole, A.J. Sherwood’s “The Tribulations of Ross Young, Supernat PA” is a really fun book to read. It has an urban fantasy setting which doesn’t take itself too seriously. It has good and sometimes outright weird characters. It has a nice, slow-burn romance. It has some bloody bits which do not erase the humour in it. If you enjoy more ridiculous stories, you will definitely enjoy this one, so give it a look if all of this sounds interesting to you.

"How I Stole the Princess' White Knight and Turned Him to Villainy" Review

The title of the book I’m reviewing here today is pretty long: “How I Stole the Princess’s White Knight and Turned Him to Villainy” by A.J. Sherwood. The book itself is also long in a purely page-count-defined way, but not really — it’s made up of six smaller stories (referred to as ‘Miracles’ in the book) which form the full narrative (with a last short story which was written for the collected works at the end to give the readers a nice ‘happily ever after’). The book itself is an easy and funny read and has already found its way onto my short list of ‘comfort reads’ I return to when I just want to relax and have some fun. That alone should tell you how much I’ve enjoyed it.

To be honest, I’m not quite sure how the book ended up on my list of suggestions from Amazon in the first place. I do read fantasy, though, especially more lighthearted and funny fantasy, and I am also a fan of male-male romance and erotica. The book falls in both categories, if more so into ‘erotica’ at times, so that might have been the reason. It might also have been a strange glitch in the matrix, but the end result was positive for me in any case.
At first, I just looked into the book in the catalogue and thought ‘well, looks interesting’ and put it on my wishlist. Many books from the wishlist just disappear from it again after a while, so it doesn’t say too much. I put them there so I can find them again, but that doesn’t mean I’ll eventually buy them. A few days later, I decided that I was going to give myself a little present and I bought it to enjoy. Enjoy it, I did.
Afterwards, I dipped into it and read the first three stories in quick succession, then I was lured away from the book for a while, came back, dug my teeth in again, and went through the rest of it in one go, even going to bed much later than normally. Then I started out at the beginning again and went through it again more than once.

The book starts out with surprisingly high stakes — the lives of about 1.100 people are at stake because the supposedly ‘good’ princess has decided to sacrifice a city to destroy a barbarian army. Devan, one of the two main characters, simply can’t allow for that to happen. After all, softening the hard blows of the princess’s decisions is his job as the First Knight of Goodwine. His only chance is the Black Sorcerer of Grimslock, the most powerful magic user he knows — and one who might listen, if the plea for help is phrased well enough, even if he has forgotten the customary kitten as payment. Tan, the aforementioned black sorcerer, definitely is prepared to listen to the man on whom he’s had a crush for fifteen years. He also is delighted to help — Tan is a black sorcerer because he had no other choice after training, not because he loves doing evil. Not that he doesn’t like to torment a few newbie adventurers every now and then, but he doesn’t harm them. Neither does he harm the kittens — they join his army of spies and guards all around the property and get ample pets and snacks.
From there on, the story takes off for real as Devan himself feels pulled towards Tan, too, and has found an ally to help him mitigate the damage Princess Serenity can do, at least for the time being, even if that can’t be the final solution.

Even though the story has many high-stakes encounters (with vampires, sirens, and other creatures as well as a magical weapon gone wild), there’s constant humour in the bantering and teasing between the two main characters, balancing out the darker parts.
It’s a surprise to a degree that a book which features the possibility of a city being burned down with everyone inside in the first story can at the same time keep everything light enough to be enjoyable and relax the reader to a degree. Perhaps it’s the fact that the reader will assume from the lighthearted ways of Tan’s and Devan’s interactions that everything will go well. Perhaps it’s just the constant humour from the teasing and bantering which takes off the edge.
On the whole, between vampires, sirens, and even murder, the story still stays rather bright and comfortable, which is not an easy feat. Partially, it is the very close third person perspective which comments everything that is happening from within the viewpoint character’s (both Devan and Tan get to be viewpoint characters) own thoughts and feelings. Partially, it’s the way everything is handled, making it clear that between them, Devan and Tan have all it needs to get things under control. There’s still the question of ‘how,’ but not the question of ‘if.’
The stories are further lightened by the clear chemistry between the leads and the way they grow closer and closer together. With them, it’s not a question of ‘if,’ but a question of ‘when.’

It should be noted that the story is also full erotica and includes several scenes of hot, steam sex between men. Yet, I’ll be honest, I mostly simply skip those on my rereads, because I’m more interested in the teasing and the building of the relationship as a such. For those who are looking for this kind of content, though, I’m sure they’ll enjoy it a lot.

On the technical side, the book shows a little that it has been made up of different parts which were out on their own in the past, such as story bits being doubled by being repeated at the beginning of the following miracle again. This makes sense for stories published independently of each other, but not so much for stories all published in the same book. There also were some editing mistakes and wrong words, but that is something you can find in every kind of book — including mine and many others from large publishers. Such things happen, no matter for how long you hunt for those mistakes. Some always hide too well until the book is out in the world.
On the whole, the story develops well, though and works out nicely. The technical weaknesses don’t take too much out of the enjoyment, at least not for me.

As I’ve already written in the introduction, I have enjoyed the book very much and have already read through it several times. It’s easy to read, the language is flowing well, and it’s a lot of fun, even once you know what happens next. Knowing that nothing of the dark things will come to pass, makes the story even more enjoyable, of course. If you like fantasy and erotica (or are prepare to just skip the latter), this might definitely be a book to look into.

Making Maps

I have always loved maps. Even as a small child, I was fascinated by those picture books with town or city scenes where you could discover all those little details and where you could see the complete town or city and imagine walking around in it. That is probably why I became so fascinated with them in the first place. At some point, then, I also became fascinated with the process of map-making and began to try it out for myself.

Whenever I come across a map in a book, even today, I can’t help but be fascinated and study it for longer than I probably should. It also doesn’t matter whether it’s a world map, an area map, a city map, or a blueprint (so, essentially, a house map). I love imagining what it would be like to be there and see it all.
Because of my fascination with maps, I’ve not only tried to draw them myself — although I have —, I’ve also looked into programs to do that with over time. Early programs I used for that were the Arcane Mapper and the Dungeon Painter Studio. Both are pretty easy to use and I have enjoyed working with them, but especially the Arcane Mapper relies heavily (or did the last time I used it) on the user finding more assets elsewhere.
I did get my hands on CC3+ as part of a Humble Bundle as well and now, with a stronger computer than I had then, I have also been looking into it, but it’s a hard one to get a grip on. Very powerful, but also very complicated.
Finally, unfortunately too late to back it on Kickstarter, I came across Dungeon Alchemist, which now is my go-to for digital map-making (although I as a writer am not the actual target audience). Dungeon Alchemist not only comes with a lot of assets (and the team is still adding more, as the game is still officially in Early Access), but also with an AI that can populate rooms according to their function without you having to put down all of the assets (furniture, decorations, lights, etc.) by hand. You can still change things later (or re-populate the room or delete all assets) with a few clicks, which is great.
So, yes, at the moment, Dungeon Alchemist is my main go-to when I quickly want to do an area map or a blueprint — mostly a blueprint.

Yet, recently I’ve also started to watch videos on YouTube from a guy who does ‘easy’ maps for fantasy games and suchlike. He’s doing it all — world maps, area maps, city maps, and dungeon maps (so something extremely similar to a blueprint) — and he’s doing it all with easy steps that make it look simple.
I’ve been trying it out already and I find that he’s right about it being simple and good-looking at the same time. That is good for the future, as I plan on doing some maps once I get to projects like “Sword and Dagger” which are set in a fantasy world and might profit from having at least a map of the city they’re set in. Being able to do them myself is a must, as I’m still self-publishing with little money to spare for help.
While I’m not yet prepared to produce something I would put into a book (and this year I won’t really have to, as the books I’m publishing are set in varieties of the real world and don’t need specific maps), I have begun to make my own maps and I enjoy it, so there’s a few things I’ve learned already.

The first thing I’ve learned, from Dungeon Alchemist as well as my own maps, is that planning is important. It’s best to start a map with a list of rooms, buildings, or landmarks you want and need to include.
For one thing, that will give you a hint on the size, as if you have a list of fifteen rooms your mansion must absolutely have, you will definitely need a larger map than for a peasant’s hovel with two rooms and a little outside area.
In addition, it will also help to spread those around the map early and then see to how they can be connected or what can be put around them. With a city map, for instance, you will want to put down all the buildings the city needs to function for you (all buildings in your story, for instance, or building that are needed for your RPG campaign) first and then fill up the space between the different streets with other buildings to reach ‘city’ status for the map.
Knowing beforehand what you’ll have on a map (or blueprint) means finding it easier to place everything in a logical way, too. If I have a dining room in my mansion, it should be close to the kitchen. A morning room should have windows facing east (as that was the point of a morning room — using the sunlight as early as possible). Bedrooms are usually on the first floor and not on the ground floor of a building (first and second floor respectively for Americans … or people from northern Germany). Taverns in a fantasy city should usually be close to big streets with a lot of traffic and to areas where a lot of people live or work. Inns might be close by the city walls, either inside or outside, to provide easy lodgings for travellers upon arrival in the city.

The second thing I’ve learned is that simple decorations can make a map look far more lively. A few simple trees made of triangles or circles with one or two lines underneath for a trunk, for instance, make the map look much better and are easy enough to do. A few short lines for grass, either straight or at an angle, can show open grassland or swamps. A triangle that’s open on the bottom is a mountain. A thicker line is a river — map-making is not only something for excellent artists. When I’m thinking back on the maps I’ve found fascinating in the past, many of them were no more complicated than that, either. Certainly, the map of Middle-Earth that held my attention longer than the Lord of the Rings novels wasn’t made with anything more complex than simple drawings to show important landmarks, cities, or other places.
Even a simple map can enhance the pleasure of reading about a strange world by quite a bit. It’s also easier to reproduce for a book or even an e-book. I will incorporate some kind of map at some point in the future, I just need to work on my skills with drawing them for a little longer, either by hand or in CC3+.

Map-making can be an interesting addition to a writer’s skill, especially if you’re writing fantasy and there are places you can’t just look up. It will be very helpful to keep distances similar and have a good idea of what is where in your world. Whether you’re just sketching out a map on a piece of paper or go all out with specific software is down to your interests, needs, and means. Look into it and see if it is helpful for you.

The Danger of Misusing Franchises

Especially Disney, a huge company on the entertainment market, has proven in recent years that while they can buy successful franchises (or the movie rights to successful IPs), they often can’t use them in a way that pleases the fans. I wrote a whole blog post about Disney and Star Wars recently, so I’m not going to go back into that now. Instead, we’ll be talking about the disaster that was Disney’s “Artemis Fowl” movie as an example. We’re also going to talk about why it is so dangerous for companies to misuse or mishandle a franchise they’ve bought the rights to.

First, I’d like to start with a short description of the Artemis Fowl series, as written by Eoin Colfer, just so we’re all on the same page. The series started in 2001 with the publishing of the first novel, simply titled “Artemis Fowl”.
From the very start, the novelty aspect of the series was presented: the character it was named for and who was definitely the protagonist, too, was both a preteen (he’s eleven in the first novel) and a full-fledged, competent criminal mastermind. Artemis is the villain in the first book (and slowly becomes a hero over time). That was interesting enough to draw people into the story and it made coming back to later books (although I think that book six and seven are a bit redundant — you can jump from five to eight, the last book, without really missing out) more likely for them as well.
There are quite some other well-realised characters in the books (and some less well-realised ones, too). For a book aimed at preteens and teens, it’s very good. Even as an adult, I’ve found reading the books entertaining and Artemis especially held up to scrutiny for me.
So, for short: Artemis is a criminal mastermind who has found out that fairies are real and is now making use of that to fill his own pockets. There’s a lot more to the first book and you might want to read it, but that’s what you essentially need to know to understand the story’s novelty.

Now for the Disney movie. When the casting decisions went public, quite some fans were already negatively surprised because two characters especially, Butler and Holly Short, were clearly cast well against their description in the book. When the first trailer was released, the fans were completely annoyed because it was all-too-obvious that this had little, if anything, to do with their beloved characters.
What about the casting, then?
Well, in the novels, Holly Short, an elf with the Lower Elements Police who meets with Artemis more than once, is several times clearly described as having nut-brown skin, brown hair, and hazel eyes. Now, fairies probably don’t have the same take on ethnicity as humans do and there’s no suggestion that Holly is considered a fairy of colour with all that includes, but the fact remains that an actress playing her should be a woman of colour. Instead, her actress is a fair-skinned, fair-haired Irish girl.
With Butler, the opposite is true. At several points in the series, Butler pretends to be a close relative of his charge (as he’s Artemis’ butler and bodyguard) — a father or an uncle. That wouldn’t work (especially with father/son) if they didn’t at least share a general colouring. Butler is described as shaving his head, but his brows are still dark and his eyes are blue — a similar blue to Artemis’ who is also described as black-haired in addition to being very pale (as he’s rarely out and about). There are suggestions (such as his given name Domovoi) that Butler might be Slavic in looks and his younger sister Juliet is described as blond-haired and blue-eyed as well. The Butler clan doesn’t seem to have African roots. In addition, they’ve been serving the Fowl clan since the fifteenth century, which would leave a bad taste if they were of African descent. Yet, both Butler and Juliet have been cast as black.
Then there’s the gender-switch for Commander Root. In the novels, Julius Root is the stereotypical rough superior who pushes his team to be the best they can be. He’s called ‘Beetroot’ by the officers under his command for his tendency to get angry quickly, too. Casting Root as a woman invalidates Holly Short’s arc in the first book, which is that she is the first female member of the recon unit — a ‘test case’ who will decide whether other female officers will be able to join later. With the commander of the recon unit being a woman, Holly clearly is no longer the first. In addition, the gender-switched casting doesn’t add to the story at all.

Yet, the more problematic change made for the movie was to make Artemis not a criminal mastermind any longer. Artemis is a nice guy in this one who is in no way, shape, or form different from other ‘preteen fantasy movie leads’ out there.
He’s also quite sporty and physical, which is the complete opposite of Book Artemis — several times throughout the series, Artemis is in considerable danger because he’s not a physical person and Butler is elsewhere and can’t help him. If Book Artemis tried to surf, he’d drown — but he wouldn’t go surfing in the first place, so it’s fine.
The big novelty of the Artemis Fowl series, as mentioned, was that Artemis was a competent criminal mastermind as early as eleven years old. That he could take over the crime empire of the family when his father went missing even earlier. That he is, without a speck of doubt, the villain in the first novel, yet he gets away with it. The first book establishes how criminal and villainous he is so the following books can slowly lead him towards a more heroic approach. Imagine how shocked the fans were to find him a nice, normal boy who will first have to learn to be a villain.
Then there’s the fact that Artemis’ mother Angeline is dead in the movie (she’s a major influence on his morals in the books) and his father is still around (to get kidnapped, something which doesn’t happen in the first novel) and knows that fairies exist. What is it with Disney and dead mothers, really?

With all of those changes made, the first and the second book squeezed together into one movie which did no services to either of the books, and with other strange choices (like casting children as most background fairies in the movie to save on computer effects), the movie wasn’t popular with the fans. For everyone else, it came down to being a pretty average urban fantasy movie aimed at preteens and teens, which also didn’t make it something everyone wanted to see.
That is the biggest danger for everyone who tries to adapt someone else’s intellectual property — if you do not understand what you are working with, you’re likely to do something which completely goes again established characteristics, traits, or canon in general. Disney fell into that trap with the Star Wars franchise and, clearly, also with Artemis Fowl. It seems as if they don’t even go far enough as to have someone read and summarise the books or watch all of the movies at least. Not to mention that they don’t seem to have anyone on the board which makes the decisions who is an outright fan…

The lesson to be learned from this, I imagine, is that you should take the time to understand a franchise before you work with it. What comes natural to writers of fan-fiction should also be common sense to people who want to profit from the fans of a franchise. If you want to pull in the fans, you have to deliver on what they love. It’s also not just the old fans — fans of your version of the franchise will be annoyed as soon as they go into older parts of it and see how different it used to be.

Internal Story Arcs

If you look into writing advice, whether in a video or in a book or on a website, you will find a lot of mentions of the ‘internal arc’ for your main character (it’s also often referred to as ‘character arc’). It’s a necessity, don’t you know? Yet, what is that elusive ‘internal arc?’ And is it really so necessary?

Let’s look at the second question first. Is an internal arc always necessary?
Well, no. Some types of stories don’t really need such an arc. In pulp stories, superhero comics, or comedic series, there usually isn’t a lasting change to the recurring characters and especially not to the main character or characters.
While in some stories characters might gain new skills, they usually are not asked to overcome a flaw (which is what an internal arc is usually all about). They are good at what they do already, they don’t really need to improve. This goes both for pulp heroes and for comic book heroes.
Similarly, many series, especially those of a more comedic bent, rely heavily on resetting the situation again between episodes, which means that no development of a character will be lasting. There might be changes in relationships (such as marriages or breakups) which last, but the characters usually don’t grow out of flaws — especially as flaws are usually chosen to allow for comedy to happen.
All of these stories need an external arc — something must be happening and the main character or characters must be involved in it. Stories without an external arc are highly experimental and usually don’t find a lot of fans. Stories without an internal arc might be looked down upon by the ‘high literature’ crowd, but they can still be very successful. So, no, depending on what you write, you might not need an internal arc at all.

If you want or need an internal arc, though, what is it about?
Internal or character arcs are almost always about a main character (rarely a supporting one) overcoming a ‘character flaw.’ ‘Flaws’ in this context are normally negative personality traits, more rarely negative habits. Characters are flawed for being shy, aggressive, arrogant, selfish, etc. They need to overcome that trait not only for their own betterment, but also in order to gain something they will need in the climax of the story — often reinforcements, sometimes information or a specific object.
It’s important not to overdo the flaw in the first place. A character who flies off the handle quickly should not beat people within an inch of their lives. They might bruise someone or cause damage to furniture etc. instead. While that is still bad enough, it is not something the audience will find unforgiving in the main character. During the story, the character then has to understand what their flaw is and has to let go of it. That can be through being told about it or through bad consequences. In the end, overcoming the flaw should pay off in some way during the climax.
For example, Han Solo’s flaw in “A New Hope” is his selfishness — he only helps for money (hence Luke’s ‘she’s rich’ line to get Han to help him rescue Leia). When he comes back in the end and saves Luke from Darth Vader, he is overcoming that selfishness and is putting his friends before his own safety (as he’s not paying off his debt to Jabba which will come back to bite him later).

One thing you should keep in mind when you’re choosing your internal arc, though, is that it should always connect with the main external one. For instance, if your internal arc is focused on your main character overcoming their shyness, then the climax of the story might include something like speaking in front of a large crowd (where shyness is definitely a problem), not defeating an enemy in combat while nobody else is present (you can be shy and a masterful fighter at the same time).
The main external arc will always be the more important one in any story, every other arc has to feed into it at some point in some way. Overcoming a flaw can help the main character overcoming a roadblock, it can give them an ally they haven’t had before, or it can gain them an object or information they need to win in the end. So if your main character’s internal arc doesn’t help with the external one in any way, it could be considered superfluous.

Internal arcs are an excellent way to give more depth to the story and add another reason for tension as well. By connecting overcoming a flaw to the things a main character needs to do in order to win the day, there is another area where problems can and most certainly will occur.
It also depends a lot on what kind of story you’re writing whether or not an internal arc can enrich the story. In an adventure story, most of the threats which can push tension are external — henchmen who come for your main character, collapsing bridges, or statues coming to life, for instance. In a romance story, on the other hand, it can matter a lot whether or not your main character can overcome their shyness or the love interest can grow out of their arrogant behaviour.
The more a story is focused on the people in it, the more useful and important can an internal arc be. The more a story is focused on action, the less useful and important an internal arc will normally be. That doesn’t mean that an action story can’t have an internal arc and that a romance story with a purely external arc can never work, but generally you will pay more attention to people’s internal struggles when their emotions matter for the story as well.

So to put it all together: an internal arc is not quite as important as an external arc for a story, but a lot of stories profit from having an internal arc or character arc at least for the main character. An internal arc should support the main external arc of the story, as this one will always be the more important one. Do not overdo the character flaw for your main character — despite being flawed, they must still be likeable or at least act in an acceptable manner. If an internal arc can add additional depth and tension to a story, you should have it in there, if not, you can just as well do without it and invest more energy into the external arcs.

Getting Back to Work

January is almost over now and it’s been the month during which I have eased out of the sabbatical I took and back into regular writing. I decided to go with another project than the one I’d worked on before I took my sabbatical and I’ve chosen the third book of the Isadora Goode series — “The Misadventures of Isadora Goode” — to ease back into writing. It was a good choice, as I really needed to get back into the flow and the novellas were easier to commit to than a novel might have been.

I’m glad I took that sabbatical in the first place, though. I had run myself ragged, always trying to keep up with the number of projects I’d plotted already and with the things happening to me and my family in real life.
The two months of respite gave me the chance to recharge, just write for fun, remind myself why I love writing so much. I also was productive in other ways, returning to crocheting, something I haven’t done for years now, taking a more relaxed approach to decorations in my journals, just doing a bit of this and a bit of that.
I’ve been reading, too, plotting new stories, and just thinking my life and my work in general through. I will not let it get to the point I was at in November again, that much is for sure.
It’s not that I’ve given up on writing completely, either. I’ve finished two Star Wars fan fictions which I really love. I’ve written some blog posts. I just haven’t written anything strictly ‘for work’ and I feel much better because of it.

Yet, with two months completely off work, I have also grown a little lazy. To a degree, it’s fine. It was something I wanted to do when taking my sabbatical.
It also means, though, that I had to ease into a regular writing habit again. I needed to find my stride again, get used to sitting down for several hours a day to write day by day, at least Monday to Friday. It’s not easy to go from ‘I write if I feel like it’ to ‘I have to write X chapters this week to make my quota.’ Yet, that is what I had to do.
During January, that is what I have done. As mentioned, I chose a novella set to get back into work, because for one thing a novella is normally around eight to twelve chapters if I plan it — so I can always see the end of the work. I also didn’t push as hard as I might have, giving myself a little leeway. It’s dangerous, as I have to make sure that ‘a day without work’ or ‘some days without work’ don’t turn into ‘months without work,’ but it’s also necessary. Not giving myself that leeway has led to my almost-burn-out in the first place, after all.

Now, I’m more or less up to par. There will always be ups and downs, times when I get a lot done and times when I struggle with just getting the bare minimum of my work finished.
January was a bit of this and a bit of that for me. I did not finish “The Misadventures of Isadora Goode”, as I had planned and hoped to, but I got two of the three novellas done — the last, longest one is going to be finished after I’ve done the editing of “The Necromancer’s Notebook” this month. I won’t even have to change the project file, as “The Necromancer’s Notebook” is volume two in the “Isadora Goode” series.
Despite not writing as often and as much as I wanted to, I’ve also almost met my quota for the month — on months where I don’t edit, the quota is 50,000 words. I have managed to get 48,000 words done, despite only easing back in. I’ll be honest — on quite some months, I’m actually well above my quota. Almost meeting it on a month where I’m just getting back into things was good enough for me.

I’ve also been thinking about why I wrote my first short-story collection very quickly when I decided to try the format out, but have struggled with both “DI Colin Rook” and “Scholomancer” (which is not yet done).
I think I know where the problem lies and how I might solve it now. The first collection (which will be out at the end of May as “The Lady of the Dead”) has a rising threat. The tension is pushed throughout the five stories and a common problem and enemy connects them. There are five different things which happen to Joanna and Alice, but there is the same enemy behind them. “DI Colin Rook” and “Scholomancer” are just a collection of stuff which happens without that person behind it all, without that plot-thread going through all of it. They are not connected.
I will go back to “Scholomancer” and work the stories over, connect them in a way (“DI Colin Rook” is written and it’s fine as it is — yet, who knows? I might actually change a few  things in the edit…). That might make it easier for me to keep writing. The other story collections I’ve plotted will be worked over, too (although “Hunters”, “The Crew”, and “Fallen Angel” all have more of a through-line already). More to do, but it’s fine.

It should be clear from this post so far that my sabbatical has been a success. I have gotten the rest I so direly needed. I have been able to think through something which I had a problem with. I have reminded myself of why I enjoy writing so much. I have gotten back to writing, too. The way ahead is clear for me — February is about editing and releasing “The Necromancer’s Notebook”. After I have prepared the release, I might do more writing on “The Misadventures of Isadora Goode”. I am much more motivated to write now (even to edit, although I don’t like editing) and I am looking forward to writing again. That hasn’t always been the case a few months ago.

My Own Trilogy

While I was plotting last week’s blog post about the failure of Disney with the Star Wars franchise, I was thinking that I would be able to write something better as a sequel trilogy. A true trilogy for one thing, but also something that would treat the old heroes with the respect they deserve while also making room for the new ones. The thought stuck with me and so I sat down and began to write down some basics for such a trilogy. Then I wrote down more. Then I plotted three novellas. The only thing still left to do now would be to write them — something I could do in three to four weeks, if I wanted to.

As had been mentioned by J. J. Abrams, the Sequel Trilogy as approved of by Disney was based around the structure of the Original Trilogy. So I wanted to start out with a structure similar to these three movies, too. I basically wanted to rely on the same basics than they had and see if I could come out of it with something better.
I wrote down a list of eight story beats per story I wanted to have — eight specific things which should happen in the story. Obviously, the first story would have to introduce the new heroes (and the secondary villain — never start out a multi-part story with the big bad!) and give us a look at the old ones. It would have to establish the plot arc (or arcs) I wanted to run through the trilogy. It also should have one part where the heroes went up against the villain, but had to flee (the Death Star escape, if you will) and then it should have a final confrontation in which they’d beat the villain (the Death Star run), but the villain was to survive (like Darth Vader did).
For the second story, I was looking at the inverted form of “The Empire Strikes Back” (which is defined by Luke making one wrong decision after the next) and decided that I wanted to split the heroes up after an early fight and have them fare less well on their own than they were faring together. I also wanted two of them captured with the third getting into trouble upon saving them. One hero would remain in captivity at the end, setting up the third story. This is also pretty close to “The Empire Strikes Back”, although it’s less based on bad choices.
Finally, I needed to start off the third story with the two free heroes coming to the imprisoned one’s help. I needed to give information on the secondary villain and the big master-plan, get him out of the way, and have the heroes face their enemies again in a rather hopeless setting. They’d win and there would be some celebration.
All of that was close to the Original Trilogy and so it would fit with the ‘we’ve based the sequels off the originals’ part of the Disney Trilogy.

Next were the basics for the heroes, the villains, the setting, and possible problems to throw at the heroes.
Starting out with the new heroes, I was going to use Rey, Finn, and Poe. I had to make a few adjustments, though, so they would work with my possible stories. Instead of being an orphan surviving alone on yet another desert planet (honestly, how many does the galaxy far, far away have?), she is now an orphan found by a Jedi and trained at the Academy (which exists). This naturally brought her together with Luke as her teacher and mentor, giving him a place in the story. Finn very much was to be a stormtrooper trained from childhood as in the Sequel Trilogy, but his latent Force-sensitivity was now a plot point, as it is what brings him into conflict with the villains. Poe came in as a pilot ordered to fly Rey around as she looks into strange things happening in the Imperial sectors. He has a problem with taking orders from someone less experienced than he, which brings him into conflict with Rey.
Poe, to take it off from there, would be under Leia’s command, so she was accounted for, too. I gave Han the job of moving among the freelance pilots and smugglers to gather information, so he’d be travelling a lot — and pick up Finn on his trip, so that he could bring Finn together with Poe and Rey.
For the villains, I had more work to do. I scrapped Ben Solo right away, but decided to take a leaf out of Disney’s book and use Jacen Solo as my jump-off point. Ben became Bail — as it wasn’t unlikely that Leia would name a child for her own adopted parents and would thus call a son ‘Bail’ after her adopted father. Yet, he didn’t fall the way Ben Solo did, but rather the way of Jacen Solo, seeking knowledge, then seeking power, then falling to the Dark Side.
For the Big Bad, I’d already settled on a cousin or aunt of Rey, another grandchild or child of the Emperor. I went with grandchild, although she is considerably older than Rey. To make sure there wouldn’t be a question like ‘why is there only one of them?,’ I would have her be after all descendants of the Emperor to ensure nobody could take her place — hence Rey’s parents died.
Setting, as mentioned, was a split galaxy — a republic and an empire — with the empire getting more aggressive again. As problems, I put down Rey’s confidence and lack of experience, Poe’s problem with taking orders from all but a selected few and asking for help, and Finn not being trusted because of his past.

When I started plotting, things got a little darker. At the back of my mind, I still had the principle of the Sith stalker — a dying Sith being surgically turned into a creature somewhere between human and non-human, between life and death, and then sent out to find and eliminate Jedi. To a degree, one can argue that Darth Vader was turned into a Sith stalker himself, as he was turned while awake and feeling all the pain.
For me, that was where Finn’s possible Force connection came in. I came up with the idea that my villains would turn dead stormtroopers with latent Force connections into stalkers. To get away without be hunted immediately, Finn would exchange IDs with a dead comrade, making the secondary villain take back the wrong body — this way Finn’s desertion would be discovered. Naturally, the villain would be after him. That made him the person to be captured and kept in story two and three.
None of my villains, by the way, is to be redeemed. Bail did too much dark stuff to be redeemed, although he gets a punishment towards the end which will give him some good karma back. Needless to say that Rey’s cousin won’t be redeemed either, but defeated for good.

I had a lot of fun plotting the three novellas and I think they would make a better trilogy, being a trilogy in the first place and not being all over the place or only trying to fit in a lot of different characters from the past stories. I know Disney would never do it, though, even if I write it — the Sith stalkers are already far too dark for anything they’d want. After all, they’re raised from the dead to make for a hard-to-destroy army. So I sneaked in a male-male relationship which Disney also wouldn’t want. Yet, I did have fun, the stories might be written one day and I might finally make an AO3 account and put it all out for others to read.

The Failure of Disney

When the Sequel Trilogy was announced, shortly after Disney had bought Lucasfilm Ltd, fans were all too happy. Finally, the story of the galaxy far, far away would continue! What we got, though, was not something to be happy about. How could Disney take over a multi-million-dollar franchise and destroy any goodwill they had with the fans in such a short time? Where was the failure?

The short answer is that Disney did not understand the franchise they’d just bought.
They saw the money Lucasfilm made with Star Wars through the TV series, the DVDs, Blue-Rays, and downloads, the books, the comics, the action figures, and the licences and assumed that they could make just as much, if not more. And they could have, don’t get me wrong. The exchange in ownership of the IP didn’t cause the fans to grow angry. The announcement of new movies was met with happiness. The movies killed that happiness effectively. Now, the TV series are working on restoring it.
Why did the movies (except for “Rogue One”) kill the happiness? Because they reviled the old heroes, gave us a rehash of the Original Trilogy (OT from here on), and are not a trilogy, despite claiming to be one. A trilogy has at least one plot arc running through all three movies, books, etc. The Sequel Trilogy (ST from now on) lacks that. Rey’s parents are the closest it gets to having one, but that topic is tossed back and forth between the two directors and ends with Rey being a niece of sorts (?) to Palpatine. (As she’s the daughter of his good clone, she’s not really his granddaughter, as a clone should be more akin to an artificial twin brother, so she’d be his niece. Relationships in Star Wars are complicated, what can you do?)
The producers of the ST had no idea what the franchise really was about, they not only dismissed what is now Legends (that was to be expected, to be honest, because it would be impossible to catch the casual movie-goer up on what happens in the roundabout thirty to forty years which have to have passed — imagine putting all of that into the title crawl, it would make the crawl two hours on its own!), they also didn’t really catch up on the canon material. They didn’t understand the characters and neither did the directors and screenwriters they chose! You want angry fans? Because that’s how you get angry fans.

The story itself also has loads of problems, though.
There is no way that the war between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance could have lasted for over forty or so years. The Legends’ solution (a split galaxy) works, as the Empire might be able to hold on to some worlds and keep them under control — others might even prefer the status they gained under the Empire. Yet, thinking that forty years of civil war would not at one point end in a balance of power is weird. Yes, I know Europe had a hundred-year war, but at that time, Europe didn’t have modern weaponry and equipment — and the galaxy far, far away has even better military equipment than that. I (and most other fans) can buy into a ‘cold war’ idea, but not into what Disney gave us.
There also was no reason to revile the heroes of the OT like that. Their character development was essentially undone and they were shown in ways which in no way fit with their character traits. Han has learned not to be all about his own advantages (even already by the end of “A New Hope”), so why is he back to being a smuggler and con-man (something he wasn’t before) all in a sudden? I can buy that his and Leia’s relationship might not have worked out — especially with their son turning to the Dark Side —, but that doesn’t mean he has to become a worse scoundrel than he was before. And then there’s Luke. Honestly, there is no way in Hell Luke would have resorted to trying to kill his own teenage nephew while he was sleeping, no matter what said nephew had done! Luke is defined by a handful of traits and the strongest are his compassion and his kindness. There’s no way he’d resort to cold-blooded murder (even though we all know a teenager can easily make you contemplate murder…).
Instead of reviling them and then killing them off, another easy solution would have been for them to be mentors or superiors in a way. At the age they were in the story, they’d have learned the lesson of leaving adventures to the younger ones and stay in the background for assistance. No reason to go out and fight evil on your own if there’s a group of trained Jedi you’ve got at your fingertips — and a Jedi should see the wisdom in that…

I also love the Emperor as much as the next Star Wars fan (or a bit more, I’m the ‘I love the villains’ type of person) and I certainly appreciate every time Ian McDiarmid steps forward and dons the robes again. That man has breathed a lot of life into what could have become a caricature otherwise. Well, to a degree the Emperor is a caricature, but a great one. Best villain ever. Yet, bringing him back for the end of the ST was not a good move. I am aware that Legends did that, too, with the “Dark Empire” story line. That one, however, was set about ten years after “A New Hope” — it seems much more likely that a clone would have stayed hidden that long. Doing it forty years later is over the top and not a good idea at all.
I’m also not going into the whole Ben Solo topic. I’d go into a rave that starts with Leia never calling her son ‘Ben’ as she knew Obi-Wan under his real name and ends with Ben being a failure as a Dark Lord — unlike the Legends character he’s modelled on: Darth Caedus aka Jacen Solo. Enough said about him.
Instead, why not use a child or grandchild of the Emperor for that? In Legends, there was a host of descendants of Palpatine around, although most of them lacked the hunger for power which drove him all the way to the Emperor position. Having a handful in canon would be easy enough. Rey is one of his descendants, why not put up a Big Bad who is related to her? That could have cut out Snoke completely and given us a strong enemy she has to prepare herself to fight. Or made Snoke a smokescreen the real ruler hides behind — also nice.

Instead, Disney gave us three disjointed movies which are definitely not a trilogy with two directors going at each other over their decisions. The Prequels gave us Jar Jar Binks, which was worse enough, but the way the ST deconstructs all that is fun and good about Star Wars is by far worse than that. Jar Jar is one character that could easily be cut out. The ST is a catastrophe that should never have happened. Disney didn’t understand the franchise and didn’t want to invest in directors who did. Now they are doing an about turn by relying on directors with prior experience for their Disney+ series — and it works. Hopefully, they’ll one day banish the ST into another ‘alternate universe,’ as they did with the Extended Universe (now Legends), and make a proper new trilogy.

Call of the Jersey Devil Review

I’ve stumbled over a lot of interesting and fun books by coincidence in my life — sometimes I’ve even found much-beloved authors that way. With this book, though, it was even more strange than normally.
I was actually looking for Aurelio Voltaire on Amazon, but not for him as an author. I was looking for his newest album, “The Black Labyrinth”. Instead, the first hit for the name was a novel, “Call of the Jersey Devil”. It had a pleasantly pulpish cover and so I looked into it and put it on my wish-list. The next day, I decided to buy it, as the e-book wasn’t expensive and I had time to waste, and I could barely put it down to do my duties during the day.

“Call of the Jersey Devil” first got me interested by the wordcraft I experienced from the very first page of the ‘look inside’ feature.
It is only to be expected, I guess, that a singer and songwriter like Voltaire would have the necessary skills to write an engaging scene, yet the wording he used was evocative and powerful and also very, very pulpish. It is also to be expected that someone who delves into the dark side of things in his songs can also write good dark scenes in prose. As I love pulp, the writing was right down my alley. Even though the story starts with a scene set in the past, this scene is also definitely setting the stage, presenting a visceral fight between good and evil, monsters and murder, and a suggestion for what the future might hold.

“Call of the Jersey Devil” is a horror novel and I am sometimes weary of those, as they often include body horror and I’m not generally a body-horror type — I usually prefer psychological horror.
In addition, I do like a balance between darker and lighter scenes, which not all horror stories offer. To me, it’s important to be able to unwind at a few points so I can be properly tense and scared again afterwards. “Call of the Jersey Devil” definitely delivers on this. There are dark and horrid scenes, there’s body horror, and the writing is visceral and very evocative throughout, yet there are also scenes of dark humour which help me relax and get ready for the horrors that await me, so I can properly experience them.
Those scenes also all offer much-needed windows into the souls and pasts of the characters, giving me more reasons to care for them.

Given the pulpish tone of the story, I was also surprised at how well-rounded the characters became over the course of the book.
They started out a little stereotypical, but they gained depth and individuality over the course of the story. Of course, most of them did not survive to the end (although in one case, ‘survive’ is debatable), but that is a given in a horror story. Yet, I cared for them, which made their eventual demise by ghouls, the Jersey Devil, or other forces all the more engaging. It’s easy to see a whole crowd of nameless, faceless stereotypes die and another to see people whose lives’ woes you know go down and be changed into something horrid (or land the worst gig in eternity).
I also love how some horror-story stereotypes were reverted in the book, especially who is allowed to see the end.

The novel does have quite some body horror, from decapitation right up to slowly turning into a ghoul, but it does its job well. I am a little suspicious of body horror most of the time, as most of it only seems to be there for the mere gore factor and not really to drive the story, yet here it is used fittingly.
A character who is defining herself by her beauty (because that is what she learned from her own mother) slowly finding her perfect skin being tarnished with boils and other blemishes, her body bloating from the quick decomposition, her beautiful hair falling out, her face becoming hideous, that is horror. Even though I myself am not defining myself through beauty, I can understand what it would be like to see that shift happening in minutes, turning into a monster, losing your identity and your past, becoming nothing but a blind, ever-hungry creature of Hell.
The book’s excellent wordcraft only enhances this and similar scenes by the visceral and evocative words used — putting pictures in my head which only enhanced the horror of what was happening. It takes a lot of talent to do this and Voltaire pulled it off in his first-ever novel. He has, of course, done it in many songs beforehand, so perhaps I shouldn’t be that surprised.

The pacing of the novel is excellent as well. There are twists and turns in all the right places, the comic-relief moments are frequent, but short, and only make the next rise in tension all the more palpable.
That is the main reason why I couldn’t put “Call of the Jersey Devil” down. The pacing gave me the moments of rest and relaxation when I needed them and then got me engaged in the story again by showing me the next horror, the next monster, the next problem and how the characters reacted to it — sometimes wisely, sometimes less so.
Together with the excellent wordcraft and the well-rounded characters, it was neigh-impossible to put the book down and I finished it within a day. While that is not unheard of for me, it’s been a while since a book engaged me that much and made me want to pick it up or go on reading while there was other stuff that really, really needed doing.

If you like horror stories and pulp, “Call of the Jersey Devil” by Aurelio Voltaire should definitely be on your ‘to read’ list. It’s well-written, has interesting characters that grow on you, paces itself very well, and also gives you a little window in the past of the author himself (since nobody can tell me that has-been Gothic singer Villy Bats has nothing to do with him, even though I wouldn’t call Voltaire a ‘has-been’). Give the story a chance if you can stand more visceral horror stories, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

Scrivener Experiences

It’s been well over a year since I switched from MS Word to Scrivener now, so I think it is a good idea to talk about my experiences, about what I think of the program now that I’ve used it for quite a while — and for everything from plotting to writing to editing to doing my blog posts. Yes, this very blog post, like all for the last year, was written in Scrivener. This should, of course, already give you an inkling of how I feel about it. I would hardly have stayed with the program for so long if I hated it. I still do have Word, I could always go back — but I won’t.

Before I dip into the meat of it, though, I want to start with an aspect which has nothing to do with the program as a such, but all with the mindset of the people behind it: the 30-day trial period. A lot of programs have something like this, giving you the chance to try out the full program, not a limited demo version, for thirty days before you need to decide whether to buy or not. Yet, the makers of Scrivener go the extra mile here.
Generally, a 30-day trial works like this: you install the program and this is day one of the trial period. Every day which ticks by lowers the number of days left by one, no matter whether or not you get to make use of the program. Say you install the program on a Monday, then this Monday is day one. On Tuesday and Wednesday, you’re doing other things and have no time to work with the program. On Thursday, you get around to it again — and three days have ticked by, you are now on the fourth day of the trial. Depending on how your life is going, half or more of the trial period might tick by without you being able to really try out the program.
For Scrivener (and the whiteboard software Scapple by the same people), it’s different. You install the program and this is day one like in the case above, but it changes afterwards. The day-counter of the trial only counts days on which you have actually opened the program. In the example above, it would work like this: You install Scrivener on a Monday, so Monday is the first day of the trial and there’s twenty-nine left. On Tuesday and Wednesday, you don’t get around to opening Scrivener because there’s a lot of other things to do. On Thursday, you open Scrivener and you’re on day two of your trial period with twenty-eight more ahead. With Scrivener, you get thirty actual days of trial — not that I needed them, I bought the program after trying it out for about two days. Yet, if you tried it out next NaNoWriMo, for instance, you could do your project in Scrivener without buying it at all.

I also love the way the projects are organised in Scrivener. Instead of one big file that could become corrupted (I did originally change to Scrivener because some of my projects in Campfire Pro had become corrupted), you have a folder with sub-folders and files to work with. All files are in an .rtf format which means they can be read with every kind of editor, even the simple Windows notepad, so even if the Scrivener file should become corrupted (not that it happened to me in over a year now, even with the big ones), you can still access your files and can incorporate them easily in a new project if you wish.
In addition, you get a backup whenever you want to, as you can set both when a backup is made (upon opening, upon closing, or at a certain time of the day) and how many backups you want to keep. You can even send your backups into a cloud save automatically which really keeps them safe, of course. Then there’s the fact that the program automatically saves your project after changes are made. You can set how long after you stopped typing this happens, but it always will and that means no thinking about ‘when did I last save my stuff?’
I also love how all of your files and folders are available within the program through the binder space. It’s so easy to switch between different scenes, to bring up notes or research material you have gathered, to fill out the bible I keep for each of my series like that. The binder gives me the chance to see everything at a glance while the file-and-folder structure allows for me to split up my stories into scenes which are easily found, read, or moved when need be. It’s much better than having to work with one large file in Word or having to keep several windows open at the same time because I need to reference different parts of a project.

One of my more recent discoveries is the composition mode which I have ignored for most of the year, working in the regular Scrivener window. There’s nothing wrong with that, mind, but having the composition mode where everything else is pushed in the background and you have a large space to write in with the typewriter mode automatically activated is much better.
Composition mode can be started and ended by pressing a key, although I usually use the icon in the Scrivener window to start it — yet, I usually end it with the escape key. Dropping into and out of it, therefore, is really, really simple and fast.
I’ve found this a pleasant way to write, especially long passages, such as full scenes and chapters. For short writing, or writing while I have to consult my notes a lot, I use the regular window — most of the time, that is. Composition mode helps me focus and makes doing my writing much easier.

Compiling in Scrivener isn’t easy. That is a simple fact. The compiler is a powerful tool which can create files in a lot of different formats and powerful tools are rarely easy to use.
I’ve needed my time to get more familiar with the compiler and I still have situations in which my files (normally .epub) don’t come out the way I want them to. It has helped, however, that I have made myself my own release format which is saved as a general format and also as an external file I can put up again, should I be forced to move between computers again (as I will be in a couple of years, I guess, but not any time soon).
By now, most of the time I get what I want when I compile a story. I still check them with the Kindle Viewer to see if they’ve been formatted the way I wanted them to, but I rarely see surprises.

Overall, I’m glad I’ve switched to Scrivener. It was hard work to bring all my projects to the new program, but it has paid off. I have found a program which is better suited for my work. That doesn’t mean that Word is a horrid program — for the office applications it was meant for, such as writing business letters and reports, Word is pretty good. I never had a problem with extremely long files (one of my Knight Agency novels has over 100,000 words), either, not on the technical side. Yet, I am a writer and not a businessperson and I’m glad I have a program which was made with someone like me in mind. A program that’s an ‘all in one’ solution for a writer, letting me keep all I need in one place with easy access. If you’re uncertain, check the program out, it might work for you as well — and it has a very fair trial period, too.