Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Mercy Thompson & Other Reader Goodness

I know, I haven't posted in a while, blah blah blah. I've been getting ready for school to go back, working, writing, and playing PC games. So there!

ANYways, I thought you Briggs fans might enjoy this article with the artist of her covers. It concerns the Mercy covers themselves and the gal who models for them. She's not a professional model, but an architectural draftsperson and part-time bartender. Pretty cool. Anyways, it's a neat read.

AND, the cover for Mercy #6 has been revealed!!! Here is River Marked, coming in Spring 2011. It's too far away!!! Luckily we'll have Masques and Wolfsbane coming in October and November of this year to tide us over.

In other book news, here's the back cover copy for Lisa Shearin's next Raine Benares book, coming out next year. It looks fantastic!

And now, for a contest link. The incomparable Meljean Brook is giving away 3 ARCs of her October steampunk romance release, The Iron Duke. Go enter before tomorrow night, and if you win, give it to me!!! ;) The novella that kicked off the series (and was really good) was in the Burning Up anthology and was titled "Here There Be Monsters."

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Plotting Assist

I had all these ideas for SciFi book 2, but they kept swirling around in my brain, getting all tangled up in each other. Finally, I pulled out a plot points template that I'd made for myself a couple of years ago. It worked for me again (in getting my thoughts sorted out) so I thought I'd post about it here in case it helps anyone else.

It's just a word doc with a series of rectangles on it. Each rectangle is for one event or aspect of an event and it basically just helps me keep things ordered and flowing logically from one event to another. It's also a place to make notes about the character development, not just the action. Here's what's in each rectangle:
Brief description of event/scene/activity
  • Prerequisite -
  • Accomplishes -
A few examples are as follows:
Street kid tries to steal Professor's purse
  • Prerequisite - Professor has put drinking glass for evidence in purse
  • Accomplishes - Showcases Professor's discomfort around kids and how she tends to freeze around violence. Glass gets broken - evidence is gone and they're back to square one.
Brainstorming about bad guy's motives
  • Prerequisite - All other avenues have led to dead-ends. The good guys are revisiting everything, trying to figure out what they're missing, or if there are different ways all the events could fit together.
  • Accomplishes - Jump-starts the investigative process again. Secondary character (Clark) makes mental leap to motive based on similar experiences he had as an MP in the armed forces. We get some more insight into Clark's past and personality.