Book Review: Sworn To Raise: Courtlight #1

Sworn To Raise: Courtlight #1

Click HERE to buy Sworn To Raise: Courtlight #1

Sworn to Raise is the story of Ciardis, a cleaning girl who is noticed by a member of a group known as the Companions Guild. Despite being from the equivelant of the boon-docks, her sponsor, Serena, takes her in and prepares her to be a Companion (more on this in a bit). During the course of the Companion training it is discovered that Ciardis posses what was thought to be a lost talent – the ability to magnify other magic users abilities. This makes her a much more desirable Companion and also introduces some of the conflict when the Prince Heir takes notice of her. More complexity is brought on by some intrigue in the Court and some mysterious hints of what might have happened to the rest of Ciardis’ actual family (the Weathervanes) as well as Ciardis simply trying to learn how to use her powers.

The book is interesting. It has a basic semi-medieval fantasy flair to it – there are guilds and armor and swords. The usual starter set for fantasy fiction. Edun, however, decides to flesh it out a bit more and play with the typical rules and arrangements. For starters, Companions here are not simply rentable prostitutes. They are fairly close to a Firefly style Companion, but have a bit more of an important role. For one thing, they can be taken on to manage estates and power. For another, the Guild re-enforces the contracts and protects its members and interests. The Companions share power with the individual they gain on the ‘Hunt.’ The more desirable a Companion, the more powerful the person seeking them (in general).

Similarly, the magic system is given a bit more detail here than a simple ‘say and spell’ style system. People still work as, essentially, Green Lantern batteries – your will and strength determine how powerful you are and how long you can cast. However, magic is somewhat inherited and limited. Some people can influence smells, others can influence memory recall, still others can influence heat. Ciardis, with her ability to amplify others abilitieis, is extremely useful AND powerful, making her both unique and valuable. The author is clearly setting up a world in this book and trying to lay some ground rules for later. There’s also a sort of magical ‘limbo’ world that is exposed and discussed, but is still kind of confusing for me but it is important to the plot.

The story itself is fairly basic, but moves a long at a good clip. A lot of the secondary characters are relegated to quick and easy characterizations with little development. Even Ciardis, the character whom we spent the most time with, is a bit under-developed. Some of the decisions she makes are reasonable given what we know about her and what she has explained either through personal dialogue or reflection. Some of her decisions, however, seem awfully plot convenient or forced. Edun does an excellent job world-building and rules lawyering, but it feels like the characters got the short end of the stick as far as development goes. While Ciardis has a lot going for her, I just don’t feel like there is a lot there yet.

There is a lot set up, but it’s going to take time to get it out and to make her feel more like a full person instead of about 7/10ths of one.

The story and its pacing make up for this, for the most part, keeping the reader entertained while exploring the world the Edun has developed. There’s just enough breathing room between actions sequences to let you process and examine what is going on without feeling rushed or bored – a tricky balance to find. That kind of balance makes this story fun and relaxing to read, which is a good thing.

On the whole, Sworn to Raise is a good story with some very strong points in its world development and pacing and a bit of a weakness in its characters. This is the start of the series and I am interested to see how the rest of the books pan out with the world-building so thoroughly established in this book.

Writing: 4/5
Characterization: 3.5/5
Plot: 3.5/5
Flow: 5/5
Value: 5/5
Total rating: 4.2/5

Book Review – Maker Space (Rachel Peng)

Click HERE to buy Maker Space

(I’ve already written once about K.B. Spangler’s authorial efforts. Check out my review of “The Russians Came Knocking” to find out a bit more about this excellent writer and her universe.)

Maker Space picks up pretty quickly in the universe of ‘A Girl and Her Fed’ as well as Digital Divide. Digital Divide is the first of Spangler’s books in the series and takes care of the majority of world building necessary to understand the intricacies of her universe. Allow me to sum up:

Essentially the United States Government decided to input chips in to people’s heads that allowed them to interact with machines. ANY machine that uses electronic processing –from cell phones to power stations to laptops – can interact with this chip. It’s an amazing piece of technology and the Government wanted to use it as a sort of secret weapon. Instead the users who didn’t go insane banded together and outed the effort forming OACET – the Office of Adaptive and Complementary Enhancement Technologies – without asking permission. Things go steadily interesting from there.

Rachel Peng is one of these OACET agents and she seems to get stuck with all of the ‘fun’ jobs. This time she is investigating a bombing that occurred in our nation’s capitol – an investigation that seems to be pointing at our own military as being responsible. Throughout the book we follow Rachel’s investigation as well as her thoughts and interactions with the community. Spangler does an excellent job of conveying the different personalities and interactions that people have with their ‘new’ cyborg brethren.

The novel is an interesting one and Peng is an interesting protagonist. While Digital Divide offered an interesting premise, I would argue that many of the characters involved, including Peng herself, were a bit on the flat side and, occasionally, repetitive. This has been fixed tremendously in Maker Space. Now that Spangler has established the universe, she gets to play with the characters and their morals.
That play is where the majority of the novel takes place. Yes, it’s a procedural story, but the characters and their interactions are at the heart of it and those interactions are fascinating. You have Peng as our filter to see the world through and the irony of her being blind is not lost on the reader. We’re only seeing what she can see, and what she can see is, in many ways, more intimate than what a sighted person can – even though many organizations would not see it that way.

We also meet a number of her colleagues in the police department (she’s a liaison between OACET and the DC police) and Spangler does a good job of differentiating the different officers and agents that Peng interacts with. Of special interest is Peng’s partner in the police. He is one of the few people that Rachel has trusted with her secret of being blind and also one of the few that she listens to an has direct admiration for. He’s also a maker, a term I haven’t heard before but appears to be based on actual spaces spread around the country. That Spangler has found this community and woven it in to the story. It is done with a great deal of respect, but not fawning – a delicate balance for a creator to reach and make feel authentic. Spangler’s authenticity comes through quite well. It helps to have a charming person like Santino to experience the community with and through.

There are also a number of ‘extras’ that pop in and out throughout the investigation. It’s the usual group of suspects, informants, and plot developers and each is interesting in their own ways. They don’t get the full on development that Santino and Peng get, but they each have their motives and personalities. They aren’t supposed to be as well developed as Santino and Peng, but they can be just as entertaining and interesting as the pair.(A few of the ‘cameos’ from her webcomic are slighted slightly in development, but that makes sense – they are supposed to be cameos and their development is left to Spangler’s webcomic.)

On the whole, this is an excellent book and is a fascinating read for fans of ‘A Girl and Her Fed’ and an even more exciting read for those that are not. It stands excellently on its own and is a great investigation novel. I enjoyed it tremendously and look forward to the next installment.

Writing: 5/5
Characterization: 5/5
Plot: 4.5/5
Flow: 4/5
Value: 5/5
Total rating: 4.85/5

Click HERE to buy Digital Divide (Book 1 of the Rachel Peng Novels)
Click HERE to buy Maker Space (Book 2 in the Rachel Peng Novels)
Click HERE to buy The Day the Russians Came Knocking (A Side Story to the Rachel Peng Novels)

Book Review – Soul of Flame

Click Here to buy Soul of Flame from Amazon.com

Soul of Flame continues the Imdalind Series tradition of amazing characterization and complex motivations.

The book starts out almost immediately after where Book 3 left off – which is good considering the events of that book. I’ll try to make this review as spoiler free as possible.

Here, Joclyn has to work through her motivations, fears, and personal faults in order to move forward toward her destiny as described in the sights. Unfortunately, what Joclyn has seen in the sights does not bode well for her or her companions – something that Joclyn must struggle with as she discovers where she belongs and cements who she belongs with. And that’s just Jos.

The other major characters – Illyan, Ryland, Thom, Cail, Wyn, Sain, all of them are present and accounted for. And each of them gets their own bits and piece. Illyan must determine how to make his continued future with Joclyn work, Wyn struggles with what has happened to her love, Ryland is…without spoiling too much, going through Hell, and Sain? Sain gets to struggle with Illyan and Joclyn and his own personal beliefs regarding the sight and what it is/how it works in a way that will make you wonder if the man spits arsenic.

Many of the emotional scenes in the book are wonderfully described and entirely immersive. Ethington’s imagery and focus on feeling is so well connected and well flowing that you don’t realize that several pages have passed while you watch the characters interact. One of the most enchanting ‘love’ scenes that I have read in a very long while is contained within this novel. If you are looking for spectacular emotion, grab this book.

In other words, Ethington’s spectacular character development continues to shine in the novel. Joclyn and Illyan are the major ones, but everyone gets a few moments in the sun that really round out the character arcs. There are a few minor questions left regarding each personal journey, but, on the whole, a lot of the characters feel ‘accomplished.’

There is not a lot of ‘plot’ advancement in the book. We know about Edmund and his evil and that our friends/lovers/horrible father figures have to stop him from moving forward and attacking others to conquer the world in darkness and pain. Only a few days, however, actually pass in the course of the novel. Instead on focusing on the action of the battle and the confrontation, the physical side of it, Ethington focuses on what it means TO the fighters and the future. The opening salvos are fired, yes, but it’s clear that Ethington is saving the major stuff for the concluding novel (due out sometime this year according to her website). Rather than make a reader feel ripped off or disappointed, Ethington’s pacing simply makes you hungry for the conclusion. The conclusion of the novel is spectacular and sets us up perfectly to see the confrontations that are sure to happen in the final volume.

On the whole, Ethington continues to shine. The Imdalind series is a shining example of excellent characters with a complex plot. If you haven’t started reading it, go grab the first three and Soul of Flame and prepare yourself for an amazing journey.

Writing – 5/5
Characterization – 5/5
Setting – 5/5
Story – 5/5
Flow – 5/5
Value – 5/5

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Book Review – Raptor Red

Cover Image – I don’t know that I’d quite draw it to Jurassic Park…

Click HERE to buy the book from Amazon.com

Disclaimer: My Wife really likes this book and asked me to read it. Insisted, really.

Raptor Red is an unsual book for me to read.

I’m not super big in toanthropomorphism . I don’t really understand the appeal or get why we would want to read adventures told from the point of view of animals. That’s just me, however, and it might be right up the someone else’s alley. So, I figured I would give the book a shot.

The story is a fairly simple one and is told from the point of view of a Raptor. Specifically a Utahraptor. We’re in the Cretaceous period and there is a land bridge that has allowed the Utahraptor to cross over in to what is, today, Utah (imagine that). The story is not so much an adventure as it is a series of life events for the raptor and its reactions to them.

Raptor Red, the title’s raptor, is our main protagonist that we follow. Bakker, a Paleontologist as well as the author of the book, puts in many behaviors and reasoning from the point of view of Raptor Red. Red is not a human protagonist, but an animal with specific needs and purposes. She (Red is female) goes through several trying events and Bakker explains the reasoning for her decisions with patient calm and almost clinical detachment. I would surmise that many of the explanations are Bakker’s own theories and models or the ones that applied, in general, to the field at the time.

At times the story is dry. Red has very little ‘emotion’ to it and instead tends to focus on events, reactions, and pseudo-reactions. The science of the book is married well with the reasoning and it makes sense. The book is very patient in those explanations. I’m somewhat curious about the explanations and how many have been disproven or questioned since the book was written. Mr. Bakker is a professional in his field, but that does not mean he cannot be wrong.

Other than the dryness, it’s a good story and a decent read. I enjoyed it simply because it was simple and quick – there are no loose ends anywhere in the book. Bakker is careful to make sure that any kind of conflict within the novel is resolved then and there – Raptors don’t hold on to vengeance after all. The thing to remember while reading the book is it is an animal telling the story (even if it is from the 3rd person) and those animal traits are what define the thought processes and narrative. As long as that is kept in mind and separated, it can be an entertaining read.

Overall Rating: 4/5
Writing: 3/5
Characterization: 4/5
Setting: 4/5
Story: 1/5
Flow: 3/5
Value: 3.5 /5 ($7.19 for Mass Market Paperback. Other options available as low as $.01 with shipping costs).

Book Review – Forever His (Stolen Bride Series)

Forever His – Shelly Thacker

Click HERE to purchase the title from Amazon.com
So, I’m not typically a romance fan. Let’s put that out there from the start. I’m not saying I don’t like romantic elements to stories, but I have trouble with a lot of the precursors to what is portrayed as a stereotypical romance novel – bustling muscles, heaving chests, long sighs, and a lot of glancing. It’s not necessarily that these things are bad but they are simply not my cup of tea.

Forever His, however, had such excellent reviews and the cover was so attractive that I had to grab it while it was free. I am glad that I did, since reading the story has dissolved many of the delusions I hold about the romance genre. A romance novel can be done well and have interesting characters and dilemmas beyond what I had considered the primary dilemmas of most romance stories. But enough about me – let’s take a look at the book.

This is a historical fiction romance with a twist of time travel. We have a modern woman thrown back in time to historically important time and place. Our out of time woman has some issues with both history (WHERE AM I?!) and historical truths (women just don’t do a lot of what she does). At first she thinks she’s delusional and ‘the man’ thinks she’s nuts, but things start to settle out and play through events. There is a lot of political intrigue and consequence set up as a part of the novel and it is played with very well.

The characters are fantastic. Our heroine is spunky but with a good sense of humor. She manages to rationalize things fairly well, all things considered, and has a fiery personality to deal with her ‘man.’ The ‘man’, on the other hand, is similarly well humored. At first he is portrayed to be rather cruel and cold, but that changes slowly through the novel. He doesn’t defrost extremely quickly and more than once the two have to patch things up between them to make things function. He makes an excellent counterpoint to our heroine’s spunk. For all of her movement, he is a solid hold; for all of her excess energy, he is a calm place. They make great foils. The only non-foil interaction that they have is in their passions – BOTH are passionate.

The story is well put together and reasoned. There are a few slow spots – but I call them breathing rooms. The pacing makes sure you can process each development within the time travel mystery – something the ‘slow’ parts take care of. I needed them to catch up and make sure everything was adding up correctly as I read. There is a lot of meat to the story and I needed those times to chew.
This is an excellent story at any price, but when I grabbed it, it was free! Give it a read when you have the chance. I’ve even, gasp, spent some real money to pick up more in the series.

Overall Rating: 5/5
Writing: 5/5
Characterization: 5/5
Setting: 5/5
Story: 5/5
Flow: 4/5
Value: 5/5 (Free), 5/5 (Standard Listing)

Book Review – Wild-born (Book 1 in the Psionic Pentology)

Wild-born (Book 1 in the Psionic Pentology)

Click HERE to purchase the Book from Amazon

There are a lot of mysteries to the mind, but not all of them are easily observable or easy to explain. Most of the mysteries of the mind that I deal with have to do with my students and how they have gotten to be where they are. Sometimes, vaguely, I wonder if their minds are connected to what they are doing. That is about the extent of my knowledge of mental powers.

Well, that and what I’ve read about for shows like Stargate SG-1 and the X-Files and in the X-Men books.

Anyway, I saw this one available for free when I was searching the Sci-Fi section of the Kindle store. Given the price (FREE!) and the cover (nice art), I thought I would give it a try. It was different than most of the items I normally read on my kindle (and Sci-Fi in general) so, it was worth it.

The story is pretty straight forward – a tween named Adrian begins to develop peculiar psychic powers. He’s the equivalent of a blaster – his powers center around telekinesis and telekinetic damage. Naturally this is pretty awesome for Adrian until his powers attract the attention of other psionics, resulting in the death of his family and the disappearance of his sister. Adrian is introduced to several different groups of psionics running around each with their own agenda and motif. Some of the significant players aren’t even psionic themselves but represent places like the US Government. All of them are interested in any psychic development and almost all psionics are somehow affiliated with one (or more) groups.

Anyhow, through a series of events, Adrian eventually ends up with a psychic older woman and her adopted psionic daughter. For the first time Adrian has a few moments of peace and some real character building before that collapses due to him being a typical tween. Regrets follow but not before he is captured by one of the competing factions. More troubles ensue culminating in a battle with a powerful whacko.

The story is nothing particularly new and it moves along at a steady, if predictable, pace. This isn’t a horrible thing, but some shifts and differences occasionally would be nice for the reader. The many groups featured in the novel are only touched upon – something that the rest of the series is certain to flesh out – which can make it feel arbitrary to have an individual member of the cast appear and declare their affiliation to said group. Given that there are no significant differences featured in the actions of the various groups (they are mentioned when those groups are introduced but we don’t see those actions featured in any of the characters), these differentiated groups seem pointless. Given that this is a first in a series, I would not be surprised if this is fixed in later books. It would, however, have been nice to see those differences introduced a little better.

The main cast is fairly well done. Adrian makes interesting claims and follows up on those claims fairly well. He is a typical ‘Tween boy, if a bit adult minded compared to most of the twelve year olds that I have worked with. As the main character his perspective colors many of the other characters in specific ways. Sometimes these contrasts of characterization are interesting and sometimes they are merely distracting; the author doesn’t seem to have a clear idea of what way he wants to go in making these contrasts.

The psychic powers are handled well. Unfortunately, like the different psionic groups, the powers feel arbitrary and the combinations that define individuals seem to have no system or sequence to it. There is little to explain why X character has Y powers other than ‘that’s the way it is.’ I like a little more structure to my power systems and characters than that. It makes it too easy for characters to have new or undiscovered powers at plot convenient moments – something that would be easy to do given the loose nature of the powers as explained in this book. However, it is the first in a series and so the author has the rest of the books to clearly define them and I hold out hope that he does.

On the whole, the book is a good introduction that was worth reading at the free price. I’m considering picking up the next two in the series just to see how things are handled, but I have some other gifted reading to finish first. On a whole, grab it while it is free, but don’t worry to much if it takes you time to get around to reading the story.

Overall Rating: 3.2/5
Writing: 3/5
Characterization: 3.5/5
Setting: 4/5
Story: 3/5
Flow: 3/5
Value: 5/5 (Free), 2/5 (Standard Listing)

Book Review: The Russians Came Knocking: A Josh Glassman Novel

Cover from Amazon for “The Russians Came Knocking”

I’m a big fan of “A Girl and Her Fed” – the webcomic universe that this book is based in, so don’t pretend that this is entirely unbiased.

The story is a pretty simple afair. Without too many spoilers – someone is trying kill a tenant in Josh Glassman’s building. He has a few problems with his condo, but puts them aside to aide the tenant. Josh offers protection and things go from there in a series of interesting plot twists and turns. The book, if it was a website, would be rated NSFW for a few of the chapters that are included.

Overall, this is a good story and it fits well in the universe. It doesn’t feel quite as polished or developed as “Digital Divide”, the first novel effort by Ms. Spangler. The writing is a little more generic and not as exciting. The sex chapters, which fit extremely well with the character of Josh, feel a bit forced. I know it was a big part of the draw according to the previews posted on the website and they are fun to read. Much better than a number of other scenes of a similar nature that I have read. It is only their insertion that feels forced.

On the whole, I strongly recommend this as a purchase. It’s a good read and completely and totally worth the price especially for fans of Ms. Spangler’s universe and A Girl and Her Fed. Go ahead and click here to purchase it from Amazon.

Writing: 5/5
Characterization: 5/5
Plot: 4/5
Flow: 4/5
Value: 5/5

Total rating: 4.5/5

Book Review: How to Date a Werewolf

Cover – stolen from the Kindle edition

 

 

How to Date a Werewolf has a lot going for it. That being said, The few fumbles
that the book makes detract, sometimes quite seriously, from the rest of the
story. If you are looking for a quick fairly fun read, this is the book for
you.

The premise of the story is simple – Rylie Cruz runs a match making
service for supernatural beings out of New Orleans. Her job is to pair up the
folks and help them avoid the chaos of having to ‘reveal’ themselves to the
population at large. Unfortunatly, one of her more recent customers is not happy
with her match. At the same time, threatening notes begin to show up at her
business and a human psychologist moves in accross the hall from her office /
apartment. There are a number of strong set-ups here and, for the most part,
they pay off.

We don’t see a lot of Rylie as a match-maker. Her office is really more of a
backdrop for events as well as a ‘meeting’ place for the characters. It does set up
some tension with the romantic interest when he begins to sort through her
papers and starts to ask odd questions, but it doesn’t really pay off. On the whole,
she could have just as easily been a supernatural librarian and it would not have
had a significant impact on the plot – which is sad since there was a lot of potential
in the premise.

We do see a lot of the consequences of Lily and her threats however. The main
conflict of the book comes from Rylie trying to sort out Lily and the backdraft
from her failure to match the woman up. The threatening notes, weird followers,
and other items of ‘tension’ are all resolved – at least in Rylie’s mind – as
being from Lily. This sort of makes sense, given how Rylie portrays herself as a
werewolf and the hints we get about werewolf society, but it quickly becomes a
real stretch. When someone starts mailing you threatening letters, you call the
police. Her love interest is quick to point out that it is a federal offense to
do such a thing and, really, I cannot fathom how Rylie is stupid enough to
ignore such a thing. Given that part of her job is being able to read people she
somehow misses that the threats are more than what she sees in Lily.

Most of the book deals with Rylie and her efforts to hide her Lycanthrope from Jack –
the ever perfect love interest of the novel. A lot of her interactions with Jack
are clever, as are a number of her monologued thoughts. A lot of the dialogue is
worth a good quick laugh out loud, and those that aren’t are generally worth at
least a chuckle. The only part of the relationship that isn’t particularly
enjoyable is all of Rylie’s whining to herself about lying to Jack and worrying
about the relationship. To put it bluntly, Rylie spends A LOT of time worrying
and self monologuing for us to follow. It makes for a good establishment of
character at the beggining. After three times, it gets to be a bother to read.
After six, it is just plain annoying. It’s the one part of the novel that I
didn’t really enjoy.

On the whole, it was a good, quick read. I’m told there is a sequel to the book
and, assuming it is reasonably priced in the kindle store, I will probably pick up
a copy. On the whole, 4/5 stars.

 

Characterization – A Little More To It

I spend a lot of time reading.

A lot.

It’s a big part of my writing strategy. All of the authors that I like to read agree – reading is a significant part of the writing experience.  It makes sense – why work on the process when you don’t experience the product (sidenote: hear that politicians? 🙂 )

Anyway….

My primary reading is coming from the ‘Free’ selection in the Kindle Store. It’s actually one of the nicer ways for me to get ahold of new material without having to worry about late fines of over $10 at the library. From what I can tell, there are two kinds of ‘free’ books in the Kindle store.

1) A ‘sample’ book from an established author to draw in new audiences.

2) A ‘sample’ book from a new author to…do the same thing.

The interesting thing is I can tell nine times out of ten which books are from established authors and which ones are from new ones. The most telling sign of the new authors is the lack of characterization. Which is odd, considering your characters are what are selling the book.

For instance, I just finished a thriller novel (review coming on Tuesday) and it was told from the perspective of two of the main characters. One was a police officer who worked in the field and one was an M15 agent who worked in the offices (under normal circumstances).

It was an interesting setup: bombs were placed around London and were going to explode in two weeks. M15 had gotten ahold of e-mail communications between the terrorist group responsible and their co-ordinator in London. They needed to infliltrate the guy’s house and obtain the cipher to the coded e-mails. They asked the woman to do it since she was an unknown on their team. Meanwhile, the police detective has a bizarre string of murders to solve and place which also contain a code. He needs the woman because she’s a code-cracker and they want to stop the serial killer. The plot was interesting and the sequence was believable enough that I didn’t immediatly delete it from my Kindle library.

The problem, though, came in when I began to read the story. Excepting the woman, there was almost no characterization to the cast. All three men – the Terrorist, the M15 boss, and the Street Cop – that were involved in the story could have swapped places with each other if they traded wigs.  It got difficult to know which man the woman was talking about as she moped about the feelings all three had (and her own problem in falling in love with a terrorist) because there was nothing to differentiate them except hair color and profession. They all took her to the same restaurant, they were all defensive of her when she was threatened, they were all kind when she was worried. They were cardboard copies of each other with different jobs.

And that’s a problem.  If I can’t tell your three main men apart from each other without their job or eye color, then it’s a problem. It could be myself as the reader who is the problem – I’ll admit. But, more likely, it’s some bad writing. It’s easy to focus on one or two characters as a writer and assume that yoru reader is seeing everything you see. It’s really easy. It’s also a bad idea. Think about it: What characters do we remember?

As a for instance: the Harry Potter series. Particularly, the Weasley family.  Immediatly Rowling sets the Weasley’s apart from other wizards (and people in general). For one thing, they ALL have red hair. And none of the pansy red -we’re talking major gingerage here. The second thing we find out is that they have a TON of kids. And each of those kids is given something unique that differentiates them: Charlie works with Dragons, Bill is charming and socially adept (enough to marry Fleur at least. Of all of the Weasley’s, Bill is the one we see the least of),  Percy is a prick, The Twins Fred and George are rebels and comedic, Ron is underperforming comparativly, and Ginny who is…well, she’s the Love Interest so… 🙂 There’s also Arthur – a person who finds Muggles fascinating and protects them even as he tinkers with their ‘toys’ and his long suffering wife Molly who is the Momma bear of modern fiction who takes a shining to Harry right from the get go. Rowling does the opposite of the above writer – if I had a room full of Weasleys and swapped their hats (ages, genders, etc) I’d still be able to tell who is who based on their actions. If Percy were in Fred’s body, we’d know it was him because he’d be nagging about the rules and giving everyone a hard time about it. If I found one tearing apart my toaster to look at its insides, I’d know it was Arthur even if he did look like his daughter. Those personality quirks and images make the characters different, interesting, and more memorable.

Now, I have to do that with my charactrs.

I am working on Threads of Destiny pretty darn consistantly and trying to make it better as I go and my wife – a great pre-reader – pointed out after the last chapter (a shopping trip of all things0  “Now it’s starting to get interesting. The characters are starting to have some personality”

(YAY! It only took me….88 pages….)

So, I’ve gone back to examine things and try and make some of their personality traits come out a little more strongly.  Greg, of course, is not a difficult one to nail down, but I find that I am having trouble working out Alista.Ironically, she’s the chracter I played in the game the story is based on.

I know who she is and how she reacts, but establishing that on the page is proving more difficult. Unless she’s presented with a conflict of interest, she doesn’t have much to go on. She argues and she defends herself and Vicor. BUt there has to be something more to it, or else it’s really not a lot.

I’m going back over my posts at thecharactersofsteve.wordpress.com to re-read her words and find some more to her. I’ll let you all know if I find anything.

So, writers, followers (we’re a growing crowd!) What tool do you find to be the most useful in establishing characterization? (My answer will be my Sunday Blog post.)

Out of the Mouth of Campers

So, I’m working at my old haunt camp for the last few weeks and I have my ‘draft’ of my novel (or at least what I have written so far) riding around in my backpack. It rained for a bit on Thursday and we were all trapped indoors. I was assigned a group of 9-year old boys so, needless to say, I was watching the Ga-Ga (indoor ground dodge ball) pit.

On a rainy day, those boys needed *something* to keep them entertained and Ga-Ga is ALWAYS entertaining. Besides, we needed the rain.

Anyhow, I happened to have my binder out (I was storing my schedule in it as well as several materials for ‘down time’) and a gal came by from the older kids and noticed the story within. This was a camper I have known for a long time, and I had no problem with her checking out my binder. I cautioned her that it was a draft and a work in progress, but she didn’t care. She wanted something to do that wasn’t making friendship bracelets.

About an hour later we called break for lunch. Her group moved out of the Gymatorium (that really is its name) and I found my binder next to my bag.

And, written on a few looseleaf pages in a cursive that was far too pretty to be my own, were some comments she had left. Nothing too horrible, but a commentary on what she thought of the story (she liked it), the characters (they’re being awfully mean to each other), the romance (really, Steve?), and a few nice little notes.

It was a neat experience and unplanned. I didn’t see her again for the rest of the week (she was in Leadership camp and I was working Day Camp) but I appreciated hearing from a reader that isn’t involved in the creation process.

Just a thought for the day.

~SE