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Written on 14 August 2023. Posted in Blog.

Entropy infects all systems. Things wear down, and either collapse or shake apart into new configurations.

Fantasy worlds are divided into a series of ages, where myths are split apart from legends and history. They might look like this Middle-Earth inspired history (at least my high school D&D campaign world did):

First Age – Gods walk the earth, or make the world. Evil gods are dealt with or bound.
Second Age – The great civilizations flourish, items of remarkable power of crafted and legendary battles occur. Famous institutions like kingdoms, and bloodlines are established.
Third Age – Not as epic, as the first or second age. The hero grows up on a farm or distant location and learns about the age of magic. Perhaps they’ll inherit a sword or learn lost secrets. There are ruins everywhere. Some dark threat left over from the second age will return and be dealt with. Perhaps the hero will reconnect with one of the elite institutions established in the second age.
Fourth Age – The age of magic ends, and everything changes. Elves sail away, gods leave the world, and hand it over to people, who, live in wisdom and peace and tell stories about the good old days to the kids.

This is also a metaphor for human life. The first age is childhood when you believe impossible things and dragons, the second age is when you’re young, fighting for your passions, the third age is when you get your job and learn how the systems of the world work. And the fourth age is when you’re paying off the mortgage, and you don’t have time to play D&D anymore or read books, but you’ve got fond memories of those days and will tell your bored family members about the good old days.

Let’s cut to 2020, COVID era. I’m in the fourth age of my life. During lockdown, I work through a bunch of intense personal stuff. One of them is that my epic fantasy novel series is doomed not to be finished in its current state—it’s lost in a muddle of endless rewrites. The book had lots of POVs, good character work and world building, but not much of a plot apart from an expedition across a continent. Time to recognize that it would never be done. I’ll never be Brandon Sanderson. (At least with that book.)

I get out my shotgun, place the barrel against the malformed, beating dreams of finishing that series, and pull the trigger.

Time to reboot. Start something else. I need to create I can finish. Shorter, less epic. Except, being one of those eternal gamemaster types, I can’t tell stories without a world.

Yeah, I could build any world I want and—my subconscious wants to design a setting in a fantasy world’s fourth age. When I was younger, the concept of the fourth age horrified me. Who’d want to tell stories in a world where the magic went away, and everything was about modern life, office workers and cars?

Now, I find that interesting. Because the past is a magical one, right? How would that influence the modern day? And how did the magic leave the world? What if something went wrong with the final epic battle between light and darkness? What if losing magic was a last ditch strike? A nuclear option. Not a gentle fading of magic like in Middle-Earth—a planned obsolescence—but a catastrophe mess that broke the world.

And what if magic survived, but became hidden, messy and complicated?

So that’s the key idea I had when designing my world. Modern, yet with a hidden layer of magic.

Now to figure out what that looked like. And what sort of stories would it drive?

How about you—did you build your world by thinking about this sort of thing to start with (themes) or did you start with some other idea? Or even a sense of a character or a vision of a scene? (I love the story by CS Lewis how his initial idea for Narnia was simply a mental picture of Lucy and Mr. Tumnus walking arm-in-arm through a snowy wood…)

Written on 01 August 2023. Posted in Blog.

So it’s important to reflect and ponder, at least for the first few days of the new year!

In 2022, I became a self-published author, with one book. I started back in 2020, so this is like a two year recap/reflection.

The Dramatic Origin Story

It was 2020. I was re-writing the Epic Fantasy Novel (about five years in development) and got frustrated when I’d finished it and the structure was pudding. It was a bunch of novellas bolted together. COVID was everywhere, and I was trapped in my house. So I joined a year long writing, online course. It was in the UK, I’m in Australia, so lots of getting up at 4am to talk to people or waiting for the replays of courses rather than joining in them.

Anyway, one thing the course guys said was to focus on the bestselling subgenre in your genre. For me, this was urban fantasy rather than epic fantasy. Also, because the genre draws a lot from detective stories, I could do a complete story in one book! And the main character could have another adventure in the next book!

I also attended WorldCon 2020 in my bedroom. At the urban fantasy panel, a cool idea for a setting struck me—what if it was a world similar to ours with cars and technology but not our Earth? And what if the past was an epic fantasy setting? And in the modern age, what if people thought that their past was folklore? But magic was still there, if you knew where to look.

Projects

In 2020, I wrote the first novel in the setting. And got it finished, thanks to the online writing course. I had a draft, but it wasn’t ready for release. Lots of getting stuck in the middle, and figuring out to make the main relationship ‘work’ between the two characters. It’s not a romance–it’s more of a thriller, but that relationship needed to click or the main character’s motivations wouldn’t make sense.

So, as a side project, I wrote a novella featuring a side character from the novel, which became ‘Final Night’. I also wrote a short story per month for my mailing list and wrote all of my world building for the setting as a tabletop roleplaying game.

Problems

The novel took longer to develop than expected! In fact, I took it through two more writing courses (I think I got addicted to courses during COVID) and I still think it needs another draft.
Because of the above, I launched the finished novella as an ongoing series, which meant dropping the novel and completing the new series based around Lukie, the undead teen detective from the novella. This was a bit of rework and rescheduling things.
My best short stories (current reader magnet) don’t link into the current series I’m working on.
I’m still working out what comparison authors to use for marketing the series.

Notes for next series

Finish at least the second book in the series, and have an idea for the overall size of the series.
Have the reader magnet that links into the main series ready when the first book is launched.

Business Approach

I realised I’d be a ‘slow’ author, and wouldn’t be able to keep up the book-a-month or rapid release schedule that the 20Books250k group focuses on. That’s all based around the KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited platform on Amazon. So I’d release wide instead. I went direct with Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Barnes & Noble and did the rest via Draft2Digital. I’ve only made about $10 from the release so far from vendors (more from hand selling to people at conventions and my book launch). I’m not too fussed, as my plan is to build a backlist and market that when I’ve got the box set ready.

Uploading to all sites was relatively painless. However, because I kept tweaking my backmatter, I’d have to login and reload my book multiple times. Next time, my final upload will be final.

Marketing

I started a mailing list, and wrote a short story a month to entertain people while I worked through things. I decide to have a character host the newsletter, as it makes it more fun for me to write, so I’m still working out a balance between microfiction/and real-life author updates.

Final Feedback

Final Night had a lot of work on it – lots of beta reading, developmental editing by the amazing Angela Slatter, more editing by Nef House Publishing…. And I thought it sparkled and gleamed like a fresh-cut gem!

I entered Final Night in the StoryGraph beta giveaway program. I got lots of reviews! Amazing! However, they were mixed. A few two stars, lots of threes and a few fours. After brooding for long hours on top of a skyscraper like Batman, I read the critical reviews. I thought people would have issues with the world building (It’s a modern world with an epic fantasy past!) but no one’s actually complained about that. Instead, the main takeaways were that readers thought the pace was too fast, and wanted more character development or digging into the side characters. I’ve made notes for Book 2—and I’m juggling the character development with the thriller pacing.

Goals

Long-term goal – build my author backlist. So write more books, and worry about ads and things later.

For 2023 – Finish the next two books in the Revenant Records series.
Complete twelve issues of the monthly newsletter.
When I finish my current series/short fiction backlog for the newsletter, submit at least three stories to magazines.
Write a proper Lukie-focused short as a reader magnet for the current series, and a second short for readers who’ve gone through Book 1.
Streamline my automation sequence for the newsletter.
Social media – Write a blog post at least once a month, besides the newsletter. Crosspost to Dreamwidth and Tumblr for audience reach. Try to find a social media that I can engage with that is fun and not tedious. (Currently enjoying Mastodon.) Write a blog post reviewing social media later on.
Read and review books and log them on Goodreads and/or Storygraph. Do one book review per month.
Engage an artist for some character/concept sketches, starting with the Librarian host of my newsletter.
Learn to draw so I can do my own character/concept sketches. Try to do one sketch every two days.

Written on 08 July 2023. Posted in Blog.

Here’s what you should think about when developing your magic system.

Why do people use it? Viewing magic as a process, why do people want to use it? How do they use it to do something in your story that they couldn’t otherwise?
How does it work? This is the transmission layer. By what mechanism does the magic do the thing it does? It’s perfectly okay to say ‘by the blood of dead gods spilled into the ethereal seams of the world’ but I like it when there’s some thought behind it. Even if the characters don’t know, stick this thought in your 90% of worldbuilding that the reader will never see. It’ll help for background consistency.
What does it feel like to use magic? I love stories where people are exploring their powers (I enjoy superhero origin stories, except those we’ve seen repeatedly; looking at you Batman, Superman and Spiderman). How does it feel to channel and cast power? Anxiety of trying to memorise a difficult formula? Getting high from channelling raw energy from the gods? Is there a taste or sensation? Or even boredom, if magic is perfunctory?
Who can use it? Trained wizards? Anyone who gets the spell right?
Where does the magic fit into your world and society? Is it a secret? Only used by the elite?

Does your magic have an overall paradigm? Like a special esoteric programming code (spell) that can hack reality can if done right? Calling upon ancient gods for boons? The flavour is important to me. I read the first few pages of a book where the hero ‘magicked a barrier in front of the demon’ and while the scene was action-paced, the flavor of the magic didn’t grab me.

Let’s run my magic system through these questions:

Why do people use it? To do things they can’t do via ordinary mortal means. Because it requires making a pact, it’s all for personal gain or desperation. Maybe to help with revenge, or to return after death to deal with your unfinished business.
How does it work? Magic is a flow of energy from another dimension. A flow of extra-dimensional energy overwrites the localised reality, enabling supernatural effects when present. For example, to summon a zombie, you’ll need a source of spectral energy from the Underworld, the land of the dead.
What does it feel like to use? Each realm has a distinct flavour of energy. Infernal magic is painful, like barbwire running through your guts. Death magic is sad and regretful, like holding a party that no one shows up to.
Who can use it? After the Rending—the terrible event when the Age of Magic ended—all portals to other dimensions were abruptly sealed off. Demons, fae, nature spirits, angels are trapped in their home realms and have limited agency to influence the mortal world. However, if you make a pact with one, you gain their vestige—a shard of their soul—and this enables you to channel supernatural energy into the mortal world. This changes you—you’re not a normal mortal anymore. You’re now half an extradimensional entity. Someone who accepts a demon’s vestige becomes a cambion; another who makes a pact with a fae becomes a changeling.
Where does the magic fit into the world? It’s secret and hidden. You have to figure out that magic exists, who you want to make a pact with, and hopefully find a patron whose goals align with yours.

The overall vibe is if you want magic, you hustle for it, and cut deals with powerful extra-dimensional entities. It’s a grungy, noir occult world. You take on supernatural debt and have to weigh the bargain you’ve made against the power you gain. Sometimes you may not have a choice but to agree.

“So everyone’s a D&D warlock?” someone asked when I described this.

Yeah.

Or John Constantine, as you sit on a teetering mound of debts and favors that are gradually spiralling out of control…

How about you? How does your world’s magic work?

Written on 03 May 2023. Posted in Blog.

I’m still figuring out social media. I’ve this blog, a Facebook page, a monthly newsletter, and ad hoc accounts on Mastodon, Dreamwidth, tumblr. New authors are told to get on social media and build a following, but I’ve been focused on getting the next book out! I’m terrible with memes and posting ad hoc thoughts. I update Facebook monthly, have slacked off on Mastodon, but have had a good run with the monthly newsletter. After some initial wibbling around content, I’ve settled on some in-character microfics, and links to an ongoing serial.

I’ll probably keep the monthly updates and newsletter going for now, maybe try to do some more in-depth engagement around launch time. I want to prioritise my blog over Facebook, so I’ll give a longer update here than what I gave there. The next Lukie book is in copy editing and line editing: a sharp shift from the creative side to the technical. I’m also working in the first draft of book 3. I have a vague outline, but my first drafts are a discovery process.

The first time I tried doing overlapping book projects, I nearly melted, but now I’m cool with copyediting book A, drafting book B, and doing another chapter of serialised book C. They say writing is like running a marathon—you work at it to build your production stamina. Also, having an office job helps, I guess.

Alpha readers have the new book (those brave enough to work through the pre-copy edited version), and the feedback is good. A few more story tweaks, editing and then I hand the book back to my editor for proofing at the end of the month. Then beta reading, and hopefully tidying up for this release.

So book 2 is on track for this year, and more updates on the other projects later.

I know I should publish to a schedule, but I don’t what that is yet! In my last post, I called the Revenant Records my learn-to-drive series. The idea is to write a solid series, making each book more awesome, and then get some data on how long I take to write a book! It’ll be awhile before I quit the day job, so my current focus is on building a backlist, and reaching new readers and improving my craft. Not very exciting, but that’s the goal. Slow and steady, and all that.

I mentioned a roleplaying game—I keep writing it, taking it apart, and trying new mechanics. I’m trying to get something together, but for a different urban fantasy setting than the one I set my novels in. Trying to develop a system, and an intricate setting at the same time, was tough, but I’ve been making better progress by switching gears. I did that for my novels, as well—the first novel I worked on (which isn’t out yet) stalled for various reasons, but I had Lukie #1 book ready to go, and that’s become my focus for this first series. I hope to visit the other characters later. The idea for the Vestiges of Magic setting is to have several short-ish series set in the same world with different characters rather than one central series.

I’m trying to get back into reading again. To manage a current bout of insomnia, I’ve had to stop writing an hour before bedtime (sniff), and start reading. And there’s a reading challenge I’d like to do. Might try something this year. That’s it for this month! I have ideas for cool blog articles, but don’t want to over-promise on social stuff and under-deliver. (Maybe in the old days of LiveJournal you could get by with blogging as your primary social media, but it’s different nowadays—where do you connect with authors you want to follow?

Or am I over thinking this, and does your store (Kobo, Amazon etc) tell you when something is out that you like?

E-reader versus smartphone

Entropy impacts your fantasy world

Self-publishing – 2020 to 2022 in review