Just a brief snippet this time, sparking a consideration of magical healing. One of the first contexts in which Margerit designed her own "effective" mystery was in Daughter of Mystery after Barbara was attacked on the bridge by Langal's thugs. That mystery was for the purpose of protection, not healing, and Margerit bemoans the fact that every kitchen maid knows an array of healing charms and her more ceremonial interests are of little immediate practical use. But that raises the question of how "effective" healing charms are in the world of Alpennia.
Teasers
Blog entry
One of my worldbuilding "things" is to toss in very specific, concrete details that have to immediate relevance to the overall story in the moment, but will then be available as settings or resources in the future.
Storytelling is an art of concealing as well as revealing. One of the reasons I enjoy using a very tight point of view is how it enables me to control what I show to the reader by means of what my viewpoint character does and doesn't know. Bits of reader feedback have suggested that some people disagree with my choice to conceal the events that immediately preceded the scene below, revealing them only by means of Barbara's fever-muddled memories.
Storytelling is an art of concealing as well as revealing. One of the reasons I enjoy using a very tight point of view is how it enables me to control what I show to the reader by means of what my viewpoint character does and doesn't know. Bits of reader feedback have suggested that some people disagree with my choice to conceal the events that immediately preceded the scene below, revealing them only by means of Barbara's fever-muddled memories.
It is a deep discomfort to me that I have often fallen into the stereotypical trap of arranging for my protagonists to be orphaned so that there aren't any pesky parental figures getting in the way of them being in peril and having adventures. In Daughter of Mystery it was a foundational element of their stories for Margerit and Barbara to be orphans. (Well, functionally, anyway. It's complicated in Barbara's case.) Antuniet wasn't an orphan in that first book, but she is by the time she gets to be a protagonist.
I love answering reader questions about Alpennia. Did you know that? I received a lovely question on my Goodreads page yesterday about what my sources and inspirations were for Alpennian magic. Answering the question gave me a chance to pull up my "development diary" where I took notes about how my ideas developed and changed when I was first writing Daughter of Mystery. Check out my answer and feel free to ask more of your own (either at Goodreads or here).
For those who have been waiting for it, the ebook versions of Mother of Souls are now available through non-Bella distributors, including iBooks, Amazon Kindle, and Barnes & Noble among others. (I would remind readers that Bella gets a bigger cut when ebooks are bought directly, but of course the best place to buy a book is always the one where you actually buy it. So I will never quibble as long as you buy!) This seems an opportune time to remind readers that reviews on the major reader-review sites like Amazon and Goodreads really help with visibility.
I ran across a lovely comment about Mother of Souls on Twitter: "[HRJ] continues to set the gold standard for her subgenre." (Of course, now I'm idly speculating on which of the several possible subgenres could be meant.) Rest assured that I will continue to try to be a gold standard for whaterver I'm writing. Oh, but of course today's blog title refers to the artist in the excerpt below!
Pages
- « first
- ‹ previous
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
