Continuing my musings on Viking-related fiction, I thought I’d talk about a not-so-obvious Viking tale, Stephen R. Lawhead’s Byzantium. When I picked up this novel at my local Borders, the last thing I thought this book would be about is Vikings. Set in the Ninth Century, the novel tells the story of Aidan, an Irish…
With the latest draft of my novel put to bed, I’ve started researching my next work. This one involves Vikings, so for the foreseeable future, I’ll be immersing myself in a world of dragon-prowed longships, Norse gods, fierce warriors, beer, and plunder! All of which calls to mind my favorite novels about Vikings. While I’ve…
Last month I wrote about my personal revision Odyssey as I embarked upon the sixth draft of my novel. (Yes, I’m a glutton for punishment!) Well, today I finished that sixth draft. The process took about a month (losing some time due to work commitments), but in the end, I reduced the novel’s length by another 3,000…
I recently finished Black Ships by Jo Graham, a novel that reimagnes The Aeneid in a more historically accurate way. I enjoyed Black Ships, and it reminded me how much I love novels that reimagine familiar legends. My all time favorite reimagining of a famous legend is Bernard Cornwell’s The Warlord Chronicles, which retells the legend…
Amid the debate between traditional publishing and indie publishing, including all the concerns about the quality of self-published works, we are reminded again about one hard reality: bookstores as we know them are ceasing to exist. Yesterday’s article in the Detroit Free Press chronicled the death throes of one local Borders store. And with shelf-space for…
Of all the blogs I frequent, my favorite for quick and amusing reads is Evil Editor. Evil Editor (or EE for short) provides critiques of query letters — those partial summaries of a novel that are supposed to entice literary agents to want to read your book. While a lot of EE’s points are helpful to…
Whenever I post about the debate between traditional publishing and indie publishing, readers comment about their frustration over the morass of bad self-published books on the market. In short, they wonder if it’s worth the effort of sifting through all the garbage out there to find good self-published fiction. Some, like author Joe Konrath, believe readers…
A few days ago, I started work on the sixth draft of my novel. This is something I’ve been avoiding, because frankly it feels a little insane. Why after four drafts, or even five, isn’t it finished? I have no idea. But this has become my Odyssey, and if I don’t get to Ithaca soon,…
Joe Konrath, a champion of the indie publishing movement, posted another great article titled “The End is Nigh,” about the potential demise of the traditional publishing model. Konrath continues to make compelling arguments about the fate of traditional publishing and what authors should do in the face of it. I’m a keenly interested observer in…
Ann C. Crispin of Writer Beware posted a fantastic article today titled “How to Satisfy Your Reader Without Being Predictable.” It’s about the need for unpredictable endings in genre fiction while still satisfying the reader’s expectations. She uses The Return of the King as an example of genre fiction which could have had a perfectly predictable and satisfying…
The first sentence may be the most important sentence in a novel. A great first line can set the tone for the story or convey the essence of a character in just a few words. So for today’s post, I thought I’d highlight some of my favorite first lines from historical and fantasy fiction: In a hole…