A Writing Update

For starters, I was interviewed recently on the Stardust and Gravel blog. Hop over there to learn extras about my books and some more things about me, like if I prefer movies, TV shows, or neither, and don't forget to enter for a chance to win a paperback copy of The Experiment.

Now for the writing update. A few weeks ago, I posted on my Facebook page that I had finished with my rewrite of The Crossways, book 2 of Time Captives, at 38,352 words, by far a record for me. The edits I made on my subsequent read through raised that number to 38,509. So now Time Captives is 2/3 complete. Book 3 will be Crannig Castle, but I haven't started it yet. I'm taking a break from Time Captives to write a companion to the trilogy.

This companion is called Espionage. Here is the logline:

In the midst of an alliance controversy, a nobleman's daughter must expose a heinous scheme by her father's political arch-enemy to force him to align with the evil strytes of Calhortz.

It will be a shorter, less complicated book than anything I have written in some time, and so it is a nice relief, in more ways than one. I'm estimating it will be about 24,000 words, and I'm aiming for ten chapters. (I just realized the number of chapters is the number of my favorite Doctor. Weird, and not intentional.) My goal is to finish Espionage by the end of August. I have a schedule that I have amazingly kept on track for a week, so I think this will happen.

Just a little bit more about it, because I like to ramble about my story ideas. The main character is a nine year old girl named Savanna, but called Vannie for short. I'm writing it in 1st person from her point of view. (Past tense, I can't stand present in the narrative of a book.) I haven't successfully written a book in 1st person, so if this works, which it seems to be doing, it will be my first. The only other complete story I wrote in 1st person was my stupidest picture book which will never see the light of day.

Vannie is a fun point of view character, and rather a relief from Adriel and Eleanor, the primary point of view characters in The Crossways. See, Adriel is a sullen and rebellious slave who is deeply hurt, and Eleanor has had her heart broken by her circumstances and been betrayed, and insists on dwelling on it, which can get sort of depressing. They'll both come out of it by the end, but they haven't quite yet. Contrast that to Vannie, who has a secure happy life, and has only the company of a very annoying cousin to complain about. Things do get more serious than that, but she still has a much lighter tone than either Adriel or Eleanor. Besides, it's fun to try to think like a little girl again. And the characters are super easy to develop, as opposed to my struggles with Time Captives who want to shut me out. :) I'm building a story board for Espionage as I write it on Pinterest. There's one for Time Captives as well.

What does this mean for publishing? Well, my plan is to publish Creighton Hill sometime early next year. I'm not sure of anything more exact yet, but I'll announce it once I am. I'm also thinking, not sure this will happen, of trying NaNo this year to write a sequel to Across the Stars about Hanna and Sam. If (and that's a big, major, huge if) I do, I will probably publish it next fall, if it's any good. You never can tell with sequels. Then the plan is to publish The Crossways in early 2016, Espionage in late 2016, and Crannig Castle the following spring. Who knows what will actually happen. After all, God is in control of my life, not me. His plans could be completely different.

Next on my writing plans, after Time Captives is finished, is to finally fully jump into an outer space dystopian trilogy I planned last year. It was sparked by a dream, and combined with ideas sparked by The Giver and my desire to write a space story because of reading Red Rain, The Destiny Trilogy, and Radialloy. I really can't wait to get into it, especially since every time I finish watching a Hunger Games movie I come away going "Must. Write. Dystopian." and start thinking about my story again even though it's completely different other than sharing a basic genre. What can I say? I've always loved evil government stories.

So that's a (not so) brief update on my current writing and publishing plans. (I could have rambled on longer, but I don't know that anyone would read it.) So long, for now!

Flawed vs. Perfect Characters Pt. 2

For any readers not on Facebook, my friend Jaye L. Knight interviewed me on her blog last week. There's still a little bit of time to enter to win an eBook copy of Across the Stars!

Last week I talked about perfect characters, and how they can be boring, annoying, or even dangerous. This week I'm going to talk about the other extreme: when character flaws are condoned.

The biggest thing I can think of to illustrate this right now is Pirates of the Caribbean. Will and Elizabeth start out as ordinary colonists, well, Elizabeth is the governor's daughter. They are good. Will is a blacksmith. He hates pirates because they are criminals. Throughout the course of the story, both Will and Elizabeth become pirates. They gradually lose their moral compass, learning to do whatever it takes to accomplish what they want to. True, the British officers aren't really good guys either, but that doesn't mean that it should be okay for the "good guys" to be pirates.

Now, I enjoy Pirates of the Caribbean (not the fourth one, I hated the fourth one), but the lack of a true moral compass by any of the characters annoys me. For instance, in the second movie, Jack Sparrow wants to get out of dying yet again, so he and his crew try to round up one hundred people to unknowingly send to their deaths, so as to trade one hundred souls for Jack's life. Am I supposed to support that? Maybe not, but I don't remember the movie making it clear that it was the wrong choice. SPOILER Elizabeth ended up tethering Jack to the Black Pearl so Davy Jones's beastie would eat him, thus killing him and alleviating the need to kill one hundred souls. So they didn't actually go through with it. Then they went to Davy Jones's Locker to get Jack out, cheating death once again. END SPOILER

Another thing that bothers me is NBC's Revolution, which has now been cancelled. I watched the first half of the first season, and enjoyed how Charlie was a good person in the midst of chaos where everyone, including her uncle Miles, were willing to kill for any reason. I stopped caring about the show when it came back after Christmas because they killed off Charlie's brother Danny, who they were trying to rescue for the first half of the season. Then they started adding in inappropriate material and I really really didn't care to watch. But my parents still watched the show, and so occasionally I caught part of an episode. I was disappointed to see how all the characters had deteriorated into wandering around killing people without much purpose. Sure, maybe Charlie and Aaron were wimps at the beginning and needed to toughen up, but to become killers? Maybe that's part of the reason why it was cancelled.

Yet another is National Treasure. I enjoy it and its sequel, yes, but the characters constantly break the law, nonchalantly, and get away with it. They steal the Declaration of Independence, kidnap the President,  hack into security systems, break into numerous places, and Ben Gates even once remarks, "Maybe one day I'll wear this to a party I'm actually invited to." Somehow they're the good guys, I suppose because they're not going around shooting people. Still, every time they get off scot-free, and are hailed as heroes for the historical finds they made in the process. It's "the end justifies the means" in action, and I don't really think that's a good message to be sending people.

I suppose Star Wars is a different matter, since the prequel trilogy is a story about how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader. His behavior isn't condoned. It tears everything apart, his friendships, his marriage, the Jedi Order, the Republic, the entire galaxy. This is a place where a negative character arc is necessary and well done. (Yes, there are tons of flaws in the film-making, but I think the negative character arc was well done.) I still don't see why Padme was stupid enough to marry him, when she knew how bad he could be, but someone had to be Luke and Leia's mother. I don't agree with the idea of marrying someone in hopes of reforming him, but again, someone had to be Luke and Leia's mother.

Something I like about Tangled, one of the many things (yes, I'm now an adult and I love that movie), is that Rapunzel didn't really start falling in love with Flynn until he saw the error of his thieving ways and started trying to be a hero. At the end Flynn says specifically that he gave up thieving and turned his life completely around, then it says that he and Rapunzel got married. See, just as I think it's bad for girls to expect perfection from their future husband, I think it's dangerous to make them think they can marry someone bad and reform him to make him good. The song "Fixer Upper" from Frozen interestingly points this out:

"We're not saying you can change him,
Cause people don't really change.
We're only saying that love's a force
That's powerful and strange.
People make bad choices when they're mad or scared or stressed.
Throw a little love their way,
And you'll bring out their best."

People can change for the better, but it's not a good idea to marry someone in the hopes of changing him. That isn't likely to work out well. It's more likely to deteriorate into a really bad situation. There's a reason the Bible says Christians shouldn't be unequally yoked with non-Christians.

Bryan Davis is actually very good at creating good, but flawed characters. Jason Masters from Dragons of Starlight and Nathan Sheppard from Echoes From the Edge are both gentlemen who care about the people around them and try to do what's right. They have flaws, but they are things they struggle against in order to do right.

I'll finish with Bardon from the Dragon Keeper Chronicles again. He is a good character who is a gentleman and a knight, but he has flaws. Yet his flaws are not condoned. Kale doesn't think it a good thing that he constantly gripes when riding horses instead of dragons, though it does amuse her. Make good guys good. Don't make them perfect, give them flaws that are clearly portrayed as flaws, and make them good. Well rounded characters are the true key to an excellent story.

Flawed vs. Perfect Characters Pt. 1

Characters are an important part of stories. In fact, they are probably the most important part. Without good characters a story is missing something vital. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about character development and I've come to the conclusion that there are two extremes to avoid: perfect characters and characters with flaws that are condoned.

I'll start with perfect characters. I love the Elsie Dinsmore series by Martha Finley, but they have a major flaw: perfect characters. If the character is a good one, he or she rarely, if ever, makes mistakes. Just look at Elsie. She is the standard of what a little girl should be, right? Lulu Raymond was really bad, until she reformed and became a Christian, at which point she was perfect. To be honest, this was pretty typical of child characters of the time. Look at Sara Crewe. She doesn't really have any serious character flaws to struggle against.

J. Grace Pennington had an excellent post about this subject awhile back. See, it's not that I'm against characters being good, not by a long shot, and I'll address that in more detail later. It's the unrealistic goodness that I don't like. It gives a false impression, and makes it impossible to relate to the characters. I never could relate to Elsie. I could relate to Lulu and her struggles with her temper, but it annoyed me when she reformed because she never did anything wrong again. Sure, I conquered my temper and don't really have much of a problem with it anymore, but that doesn't mean I don't struggle with sin in other areas anymore. I think good guys should be good, of course, but not perfect. Perfection in a human character is unrelatable, and makes for a flat, cardboard character.

Another aspect I thought of recently, actually what got me thinking about it again, was the perfect "love interest." A trap many authors fall into is creating a girl character and then making a perfect guy for her to marry. I admit, I did somewhat fall into this trap myself when writing Felix Walker. And my favorite character in The Hunger Games Trilogy is Peeta Mellark, who is pretty near perfect. I mean, he does lie to the Capitol, but overall he's really good. He's really nice, he loves Katniss unconditionally and is blind to her flaws, and he is incredibly selfless. He was willing to let himself get beaten for burning bread in order to give Katniss the bread that saved her life after her father died. Maybe there are people like that, but we can't teach our readers to expect that from real life. Things do change in regards to him in Mockingjay but that would be a major spoiler.

On the other hand, Jace in Ilyon Chronicles is far from perfect. He is constantly depressed because of his ryrik blood and sometimes has difficulty controlling his temper. But he's still a good person, and is always struggling against his nature and trying to protect others, namely Kyrin. The character who got me thinking about this subject again was Bardon in Donita K. Paul's Dragon Keeper Chronicles. He is a gentleman and a chivalrous knight, but he's not perfect. He can be infuriating with his principle quoting. Actually, he kind of reminds me of Ferus Olin from Jedi Quest and Last of the Jedi by Jude Watson, a character who was so focused on being perfectly by the book that he became stuck up. Not that Bardon was all that stuck up, but still.

I think having a perfect character in such a role is a very bad idea. It prepares girls to expect perfection out of their future husband, which of course can never be attained. The key I discovered with Bardon is that he is a character in his own right. Sure, he entered the story to eventually marry Kale, but he still is his own character. He got the first 3/4 of DragonKnight to develop as an independent character, struggling against his nature and personal desires in order to do what is right, and it made the last books better for him to be a character in his own right.

Next week (hopefully), I will explore the opposite extreme: condoned character flaws.

On Writing Journeys

A writing tip gleaned from C. S. Lewis.

The Time Captives trilogy has been full of writing struggles for me, from character development to worldbuilding. One of these struggles was the writing of journeys. They should be long, who ever heard of a fantasy country it took two hours to cross? But just journeying on and on with nothing really happening gets really boring really quick.

I was trying to figure out how to write journeys accurately. I researched how far someone could walk in a day, and didn't get a definitive answer, but it was enough for me to realize Calhortea must be tiny. It barely took the Hubbards any time at all to reach Calhortz in the first draft. It needed to be a bigger world. Yet, I didn't want to do like Month of the Novel and write "So they walked and they walked and they walked and they walked and they walked and they walked and they walked and they walked..." And I had that "show, don't tell" principle in my head.

A few months ago, I had a bunch of sewing projects. I like listening to audiobooks while I sew, otherwise I'm bored, so I got out my Focus on the Family Radio Theater Narnia audiobooks, and randomly picked The Horse and His Boy. If you're at all familiar with the story, you know that it is full of journeying. I have read and listened to that book millions of times, but that time something hit me. It skips a lot of the traveling!

The book "shows" the beginning of the journey, how tired and sore Shasta is, etc. then sets up their system for traveling (every other night Shasta went into a village and met Bree on the other side). Then it tells that this went on for weeks and weeks. It doesn't get to "showing" again until the night they meet Aravis and Hwin. Cool, isn't it? It just skips the boring parts of the journey where nothing important happened. And it's okay. It's even preferable.

I noticed this in DragonSpell by Donita K. Paul as well. It sets up what it's like to travel through the Bogs, then just says it went on for however long it took for something to actually happen. It just comes down to knowing when to show and when to tell. There are times for both, and a story wouldn't be complete with the omission of one or the other.

There's always stuff to tell and stuff to skip and skim over. As E. Nesbit wrote in The Story of the Treasure Seekers, "The best part of books is when things are happening....This is why I shall not tell you in this story about all the days when nothing happened....So I shall just tell you the nice interesting parts--and in between you will understand that we had our meals and got up and went to bed, and dull things like that. It would be sickening to write all that down, though of course it happens."

So now I don't worry about just saying they traveled for so long. Something doesn't have to happen every minute, and it's okay to skim over the weeks of a journey where nothing really happens.

Shire Reviews

Last week, while my sister Rebekah was doing the breakfast dishes and critiquing The Door Within, I had an idea. I often get crazy ideas that I drag my sisters into. Well, this one wasn't too crazy, and we got permission to pursue it. We started a review blog.

Our blog is called Shire Reviews and we will be reviewing books and movies on it. My sister Addyson reviewed The Pirate Daughter's Promise last week and today's is a review written by Rebekah of Third Starlighter.

Join us in our newest venture over at ShireReviews.blogspot.com

(And yes, this announcement is instead of a real post because, though I have several planned, I didn't feel like writing one up. :) )

The Word Changers Review

Her parents argue and fight almost every day. Not only is their marriage falling apart, but teenager Posy feels her life is falling apart with it. Amidst anger and tears, she retreats to the old library down the street. Posy selects one mysterious book in an undiscovered corner of the library and is magically drawn into another world.

Posy finds herself in a kingdom ruled by a cruel and manipulative king and queen who have attempted to usurp the role that belongs only to the Author of their story. The princess flees, an uprising is breaking out in the kingdom, and the prince and other characters fight against their slavery to the Plot.

Posy and the prince search for the fled princess, encountering hideous monsters, fierce battles, incredible danger, and strange creatures that Posy only ever dreamed. They must travel to mysterious places that expose the darkest part of the heart, their own raw fear, and past wounds that haunt them. Will they find truth and forgiveness as they plunge into the book? Will Posy and the prince save the story? Will Posy heal the heartache she knew in her own world?

********************************************************************

Recommended for: Teens

The Word Changers was an interesting fantasy story with an intriguing premise: People in books are real. Posy, a girl from the real world, replaces the missing princess Evanthe in the Plot of a book, but she finds that much more than a missing princess is afoot. Posy and Evanthe's brother Kyran go on a quest to find Evanthe, and discover what has really happened to the Plot along the way. I did enjoy this book, but unfortunately it did not jump onto my extensive favorites list.

Writing: 4/5

The Word Changers is fairly well written. While it didn't ever become a page turner for me, I was never jerked out of the story by poor writing. Descriptions were pretty good and emotions were described well. The writing wasn't anything extraordinary, but it was pretty good.

Setting: 4/5

It's a fantasy world within a book. It has mythical creatures like centaurs, talking animals and a magical mist that tells Posy what to do, which was kind of cool. It was a little difficult to get used to talking owls outside of Narnia. It seemed a little out of place in a young adult book, but the owls were crucial to the plot. I wasn't terribly intrigued by the setting within the kingdom, but I did really like the Glooming. It was an interesting place, and full of different tests Posy and Kyran had to get through to make it to Evanthe. I don't want to give the Glooming away, but I thought it the best part of the book.

Plot: 3/5

I'm divided on this. Part of the plot I liked and part of it I didn't. I'll start with the part I liked: the adventure. There was quite a bit of it, as Posy and Kyran set out to find Evanthe, and got involved in starting a fight for the True Plot against the king. And again, I liked the stuff within the Glooming. It kept reminding me of things from many of my favorite books, but in a new way. I also did like when they met the Author and learned about him writing their story. I usually appreciate writing based allegory.

Now, what I didn't like: the romance. I'm not against a romance subplot, I rather like them, but this one never worked for me. What I love about the romance in Molly Evangeline's books is how the relationship is built on God and friendship. In The Word Changers, it seems to be built on that she's a teenage girl, and he's a handsome guy, and doesn't all YA need a little romance? When Posy first met Kyran, she hated him, but then, next time, when they were setting out on their journey to find Evanthe, she seemed to be falling for him simply because he was a guy. Not that Kyran was bad, he is a pretty good character, it's just that's not why she falls for him. The feeling is returned, but still, it seems to be for no other reason than because the book "needed" a romance. There are a couple of kisses between them, which I didn't feel were necessary. I think the book would have been better if the author hadn't tried to force in a romance.

Character Development: 3/5

Posy and Kyran were fairly well developed, but I never really connected with either of them. I did like how it was difficult to figure out whose side Falak the owl was really on. Also, the side the king and queen were on was difficult to discern, which was a good thing. The lesser characters were a little difficult to keep track of, and not very distinct. They did behave like typical book characters, but again, I didn't connect to them.

All in all, The Word Changers was a pretty good book built around an intriguing concept. Though I don't count it as a favorite, I did enjoy it.


I received a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed are my own.

Random Facts About Me

My friend Jaye tagged me in the Sunflower Blogger Award. Basically, I list 11 random facts about me, answer 11 questions, and tag 11 more bloggers to participate. (I'm not sure I know 11 bloggers, and several of the ones I do know were already tagged, so I'll have to cheat on that, but anyway.) I've never done anything like this before, after all, my blog has only been around about a year, but it sounds like fun, so here goes!

11 Random Facts

1. I hate spicy food. I don't like it when my mouth feels like it's on fire and I have to take a drink after each bite.

2. I love kids. If there's a baby in the room, I'm sure to be hovering around.

3. When I was little, I hated for stories to be about a boy, or about some one older than me, or something that was generally considered to be for boys or simply wasn't girly (action/adventure movies such as Star Wars for example). Now I'd much rather watch a superhero movie than Pride and Prejudice. And, quite honestly, I think most chick flicks are boring.

4. Ever since I saw the play Annie, I have loved orphan stories. My favorite childhood game was "run away from the orphanage," though I also loved to play pioneer.

5. I sing Disney songs all the time, and constantly respond with a quote from Bad Lip Reading.

6. I once had two turtles: Franklin and D. W. We discovered Franklin was a girl when she laid eggs . . . that she promptly ate.

7. I'm scared of snakes and salamanders and anything else slithery.

8. I have had more grand ideas that never came about than I can count. One was digging an underground playhouse with a plastic snow shovel when I was five or six. And despite many attempts, I still haven't managed to make a movie.

9. I own several hundred books, and desperately need another bookshelf, but there are still books I want that I don't have. (Of course, some of those aren't available yet, like all of Ilyon Chronicles and the rest of the Firmament Series.)

10. I scream on roller coasters.

11. I "blame" the Loudermilk family for the way my family's life is now. We met them when we started homeschooling and they dragged us into politics and got us into making our own bread. Though we are now involved in a very intense congressional campaign, I don't regret how God has used them in our lives.

My answers to the 11 questions


1.What is your favorite kind of tree?
I'm not really into trees, but I suppose it would have to be any tree you could put a tree house in. I would love to have a tree house.
2.Do you prefer tea or coffee or neither?
In general neither, but lately I've been drinking tea while I write and I kind of like doing that now.

3.What is your favorite social media site?
I'm not real into social media, but Facebook is where I get to see pictures of babies I know. :)
4.What is the last sentence you wrote in a story?
That would be from a random short story I'm writing.

She peeked at her little brothers Jack and Henry in the next bed.
5.Who is your favorite historical figure and why?
That's tough, but I think I'll pick George Washington because he was a man of God and the father of our country. I could tell many interesting stories about him, but I don't have room here.

6.What is your biggest pet peeve?
People calling America a democracy. We're not, we're a representative republic.

7.What’s your favorite dessert?
Ice Cream.

8.If you could live in any time period (past, present, or future) what would you choose?
The early 1800s. I would miss modern conveniences (a lot), but it's a really neat time in American history.

9.What is your favorite book to re-read (besides the Bible)
Probably A Wrinkle in Time. I've read it a ton. Though I've also read Narnia just as much.
10.What genre do you read most?
I think fantasy, but I also read a good bit of historical fiction and some science fiction. My taste in genres is pretty diverse.

11.What is the best movie you have ever watched?
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I watched it so much I had the entire thing memorized, so it's clear I love it.

I can't think of many bloggers, but here's a few.

Destiny
Sarah
Savannah
Leah

My 11 questions for bloggers
I don't feel like thinking of new ones, so I'll just copy the same ones.

1.What is your favorite kind of tree?
2.Do you prefer tea or coffee or neither?
3.What is your favorite social media site?
4.What is the last sentence you wrote in a story?
5.Who is your favorite historical figure and why?
6.What is your biggest pet peeve?
7.What’s your favorite dessert?
8.If you could live in any time period (past, present, or future) what would you choose?
9.What is your favorite book to re-read (besides the Bible)
10.What genre do you read most?
11.What is the best movie you have ever watched?