characters

Things are Weird

March 22, 2020 by Elizabeth Drake 8 Comments

I am not going to belabor the COVID-19 outbreak, nor am I going to minimize it.

My family is struggling. Frankly, eight days cooped up together is a lot. My husband has a cold. Every time he coughs, we jump. But yes, just a cold, thankfully.

I turn on the news only to turn it off again. I am doing what I can with social distancing. There is little more I can do right now.

We have no idea when or even if the kids will go back to school this year.

Grocery shopping is a nightmare.

The fear over if we will have a job in a few weeks also looms large. We live America where there really is no social safety net. We are fortunate that we have some savings to see us through, but the threat of unemployment is very real.

Through all of this, I have been…writing. Yeah. I know.

I’ve basically tuned it to what I need to, then I have buried my head in the sand with my imaginary characters.

I finished one book during this time and am 30k words into a second. Yeah, burying my head.

middle-ages-knight — There will be knights. Mages, too!

I don’t know what else to do.

I look forward to a return to some normalcy. To at least knowing what we face rather than just being afraid all the time.

Until then, I pick up my sword and shield, and face the demons of the unknown in the dark.

Book Review: Don’t Tell a Duke You Love Him

February 28, 2020 by Elizabeth Drake

I don’t leave book reviews on Amazon or Goodreads as I am an author myself and think I am sometimes too critical. But I will share my thoughts here. Partially because I feel it’s only fair to give an honest review, but more for myself. It really helps me focus on what I like and don’t like in a story.

I picked up this book as the author was new-to-me and a USA Today Bestselling author. I am actively looking for new authors that transport me new worlds. If they can do that, reading them will make my own work better.

There was so much promise in this book it broke my heart it didn’t fulfill it.

First, there were missing words and so many issues with commas it made my head hurt. I eventually forced myself to stop looking at punctuation. Not a great start.

The plot was weak but there. A snowstorm traps a duke with the lady that caught his eye and he’s trying to avoid. This is standard plot fare in some Regency, so okay.

What caused me so much pain were the characters. I wanted to love and adore the three sisters, yet, I struggled to tell the difference between the main character, Lily, and her sister, Camille. They seemed like all but the same person. The third sister, Adelaide, I liked her. A lot. She had the most personality of anyone in the story but was a bit character.

The hero was your standard brooding, unloved duke. He was literally a walking trope.

It also contained the standard love-at-first-sight trope with nothing really to back it up. The romance between the two characters is so superficial, and they are married in less than two days of knowing each other.

I wanted them to get together. I’m a romance reader. This is a given going into any book. But I never really felt anything for either character. I was never really pulling for them, but then it could be because they were all but together by page twenty.

The heroine’s mother comes off as horrible, but stupid, and makes a poor villain and no real impediment.

Despite the cover, there is really no heat at all. A few okay kisses, and one after-marriage scene at the end. Nothing for me to learn there.

The characters do get together. No, this isn’t a spoiler. It’s a romance novel. I expect it. But there is really no reason why they couldn’t be together at the half-way point in the book. I was actually surprised there were so many pages left when I hit this point. My guess is the remaining half is to round out page count as there is nothing at any point that really tests their love, and there is nothing to help them get over any emotional baggage they supposedly have.

It’s a light, easy read, but it didn’t grip me. Maybe because it is just a compilation of tropes without making any of them more. If I wouldn’t have been able to read it in one sitting, I would have put it down and never picked it back up again.

Book Review: Romancing the Duke

November 27, 2019 by Elizabeth Drake

As said by one of the greats, and quoted often:

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
― Stephen King

But as a writer, I need to do more than just consume fiction. Consuming it is easy. But much like watching great movies doesn’t make me a screenwriter, I also need to do more than read great books. I need think about what makes them great. To understand what I liked about them, and even what I dislikes about them. But more than that, I need to think about the how and why the author does what they do.

Tessa Dare is an amazing author, so I decided to really think through one of her books. I just finished this one, and it is was a nice read. I started it on Friday night and finished it on Saturday morning.

As a said, it’s a solid read, and I would recommend it.

As I think through it, here are a few things she did particularly well I can learn from:

She doesn’t reveal things too quickly. Why is the heroine afraid of the dark? You’ll find out, but not too quickly. And when you do, it moves the romance along. She does this repeatedly, seeding story points early and bringing them to fruition later.

Her characters are not perfect. The heroine isn’t insurmountably beautiful. The hero is scarred. Literally. And blind. She uses this to build tension naturally. There are very few external events, which is perfect.

She uses these flaws to create tension. The characters do talk to each other, and sometimes they say mean things. But this fits with the flaws. Never too much to make them irredeemable, but you can see them working through their pain and flaws to earn their happily-ever-after.

Her characters all have agency. Each one chooses their path. They act with self-interest as well. Sometimes blatantly, but never maliciously so you still love them.

Her steamy scenes are concise but impactful.

Reading the work of a master always helps with your own work. Building a world. Crafting a story. I am particularly mindful of how she builds those character flaws and allows them to guide the story.

Something more for me to ponder.

A Bit of a Change

October 3, 2019 by Elizabeth Drake

As I had previously mentioned, it is that time of year where my day job gets insanely busy. I will be putting in long hours at work, trying to balance family life, and still attempting to put forth some fresh words on a page.

I have new characters flying through my head, new kingdoms within my world, and new villains.

I am trying to keep the creativity lit while still meeting my other demands, and some of these characters won’t shut up.

Not a bad fate, except I have two other first drafts already in the works that I need to finish before I get to them.

I am not complaining about the plethora of ideas coming my way. What I need is more time…

For now, these new characters have been giving me snippets of their life and backstory on my commute into work, in the shower, while I make dinner…you get the idea. Whether any of these character will ever get their own book, I don’t know. Even if they do, how much of their story will stay the same, I don’t know.

But I thought it would be fun to share them with you. Give you a little glimpse of the madness that is being a writer as your characters are talking in your head.

I have precious little time lately, and rather than fight these shots of creativity, I am going to embrace it. See where it leads.

With that in mind, my blog posts for a bit will be shorts of all that they are showing me and telling me as I let them take over.

As always, let me know what you think.

If any of them sound particularly interesting, I will listen to them a bit more.

writers-block-when-your-imaginary-friends-refuse-to-talk-to-24442489 — Not suffering from this! Just need more time!

Writing: The Slog

April 4, 2019 by Elizabeth Drake

I have gone from the euphoric high of new characters and fresh beginnings to the slog.

So I decided to procrastinate do some research, and curl up with a couple of good books.

Which may have made the situation I’m currently in with this WIP worse as now I am yelling at myself not to compare my first draft with a New York Times best-selling author’s final finished product.

I know this. Mentally. But the reptile brain is less easily convinced by reason.

And it doesn’t help that my characters are not behaving. They are not doing what my notes said they should do. The hero is not at all what I thought he would be like. He’s a dark and powerful mage that…likes puppies and kittens?!?

Wait, what?!?

Leikar, you are supposed to…never mind. You do you, and let’s see if that gives us a story.

PaperAirplane — What I’m doing with all my notes for this story.

And this is what happens in the middle of my stories. My characters are off doing things they weren’t supposed to do until later in the story. Acing in ways I’d never intended.

I have to slog through it and find my way to the end.

Usually, writing the ending is much more like writing the beginning. At that point, the characters have tossed my ideas aside and just run toward their own ending.

But, I have to get to where they are taking me.

Let them show me the path even though its not the path I chose.

So, yes, the writing is going much slower. I am in the soft morass of the middle where things happen that I know I’m going to have to go back and add foreshadowing for in earlier chapters. Where I know a ton of things are going to need to be tidied and cleaned up.

But that’s for later.

The middle is where I most need to silence the internal editor as every word is a struggle to get on the page anyway. The last thing I need to do is quiet the ideas that are coming because I started three sentences in a row with the same word.

Still, I am getting there. Perhaps in another few weeks, I will have another completed first draft.

To add to my pile.

books-768426_640 — My editing pile isn’t this bad. Yet.

I need to figure out how to edit faster. But that will wait until I get through this journey.

First, Leikar has to show me how he’s going to get out of the mess that found him.

*evil author laugh*

Writing Process: Writer’s Block

November 15, 2018 by Elizabeth Drake

Writer’s block sucks.

I’ve been suffering from it for well over a week. While many are participating in NaNoWriMo (yes, auto correct, that’s the word I want), I’ve been trying to plod along at my 1,000 words a day. This will result in a first draft completed by the end of November.

As is my usual M.O., I was ahead on my word count. I hate waiting until the last minute for deadlines, and it’s no different with my writing.

Then came family birthdays. Halloween. My never-ending kitchen which probably won’t be done by Christmas.

That is before you take into consideration this is the busiest time of year at work. I’m going in early and working through lunch, and I still have to bring things home at night.

I am literally writing this post as I wait outside my daughter’s dance class.

So, yeah, time is tight.

But it’s more than that.

Normally the characters are dancing in my brain. Invading my commute. Singing to me in the shower.

They’ve gone silent.

Maybe because I wasn’t listening to them. Who wants to shout at a wall?

Or maybe there is something wrong with the story. Maybe I backed my characters into a corner and I’m playing Barbies with them rather than writing a coherent novel.

Or perhaps it’s this pesky plotting business, and my characters just don’t want to do what’s supposed to happen next. Always ~~possible~~ probable.

It’s possible figuring out the underlying cause of my writer’s block will help me beat it, but it ~~might not~~ won’t.

I need to work through it. Close my eyes, give up my pre-conceived ideas of what was going to happen next, and let the characters talk to me. Let them lead me on their journey.

Looks like I’m a pantser no matter how hard I try to be otherwise.

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