point of view

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POINT OF VIEW: Keeping Track of All the Details

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Series Bible

I was just a part of a great online panel on story bibles. “What’s a story bible?” you ask. It’s a great way for a writer to keep track of all the nitty-gritty details of a story or series. The longer you write in a given universe, be it sci-fi, fantasy, or a sweet magical contemporary set in the eastern end of Sacramento, the details pile up quickly: Character Details: Hair color, eye color, height, race, history, relationships and personal tics. Place Details: Stores and restaurants, real and imagined. Neighborhoods. Moon bases or starships or enchanted cities. Cultural Details: What … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Writing in a Time of Chaos

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chaos - deposit photos

Damn, it’s been a week. The earth is shaking, a country is falling, and a virus is surging across the land. Mark and I find ourselves trapped inside our house again, staring out the windows at the excessive heat (and sometimes the wildfire smoke) and feeling like it’s 2020 all over again. My writing is in a shambles. Or maybe it’s not. I’m in the second third of the third book in a trilogy. I’m too close to it and I just can’t tell anymore. I am actually writing, but it’s too soon to know how it’s really going. Welcome … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Writing Alien

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Alien - Deposit Photos

I just finished reading The Bantam by RJ Theodore (review coming soon). I really enjoyed it – it’s like a crash course in writing a relatable alien. So how did the author do it? When writing truly alien characters, we have to discard everything we know: Why should they be bipedal? Why should they have hands or fingers, and why would these appendages be at the end of arms? Why would they have two genders? Why two eyes? Would they even have something we’d call eyes? Many sci-fi shows, books and films create aliens that are basically humans with different … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: There’s Always Beauty in the Garden

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Flowers From Scott's Garden

This column was going to be titled “Here We Go Again,” and would have been all about the delta variant and being a writer, and about Mark and I having to shrink the boundaries of our world once again. But fuck that. I am so sick of talking about Covid19 and conspiracies and vaccines and face masks and lockdowns and rabid politicians and shortages of Yasso Bars and cashews and boba pearls and Tazo green tea. I need a little beauty. One of our favorite TV shows is Arrested Development, the comedic story of a very dysfunctional family. In one … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Gone Wide

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Gone Wide - Deposit Photos

Last month, I talked about the pros and cons of “going wide” – selling my books through a bunch of vendors and venues instead of only Amazon. Today, I’m finally there. All of my books are available via Amazon, iBooks, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble. And all of them that are published via our press, Other Worlds Ink, are also available through Thalia, Vivlio, Payhip, and to bookstores and libraries via Ingram Spark. So far, the results are encouraging. I’m seeing sales via Kobo and Barnes & Noble, and Amazon is holding its own. I’m even seeing some via iBooks. … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: The Muddy Middle Squared

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Lost Tourist - Deposit Photos

I’ve written before about the muddy middle. It’s the part of your book, for me usually about two-thirds through, where you suddenly lose all faith in your ability to string words together. Your story feels boring and derivative, and you wonder why you ever thought you could do this whole writing thing in the first place. It doesn’t help that all around you, other writers are holding up their new book babies like proud parents and exclaiming how wonderful it is to finally be able to share them with the world. At the same time, you feel like you will … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Making the Cover

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Lamplighter - J. Scott Coatsworth

Last Saturday, I released a new short story. Well, both new and old, as it was originally written in the 90’s and never published until Galaxy’s Edge picked it up recently. Even though this is a 99¢ short story, I still wanted a cool cover for it. The one I ended up making reminds me of the 80’s mass market fantasy covers I loved so much in High School. So I thought it would be fun to show you how it was done. The longest part of the whole cover creation process is finding the right image or images. In … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Choosing Person and Tense – Third Person

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friends - deposit photos

Last week we talked about writing in first person. This week I thought I’d tackle the more common third person usage. Third person means using he/she/they etc pronouns – stories that describe the action from outside of the characters. It comes in three basic flavors: Third Person Omniscient: The most common of the three. Omniscient allows you to have multiple viewpoint characters, and an outside “omniscient” narrator who’s basically describing the story as it goes (you). This version of third person gives you the most freedom, as you can head hop (although doing so within a scene is strongly discouraged) … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Giving Something Back

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Giving Back

A few months ago, I was asked to give a little of my time as a writer for a good cause. A fellow author had fallen on hard times, and one of my other writer friends – Chisto Healy – had decided to do something about it. It was a simple ask, a short story for an anthology to help raise funds for the author who had fallen on hard times during the pandemic. And yet, I had a business to run with my husband Mark, novels to write, and the whole covid-19 to worry about. I put Chisto off, … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: When Your Story Sucks

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Disapproval - Deposit Photos

I’ve been a bit stuck on my WIP novel The Hencha Queen for a couple weeks now. I’ve also sent my previously-written short stories to most of the magazines on my list. So it seemed like a great time to write a new short story – exercise those writing muscles and have something sparkly and new to submit on the SFF magazine circuit too. It would only take a coupla days, right? Famous last words… So I sat down and whipped up a new short set in the same world as my (as-yet) unreleased shorts High Seven and What the … Read more