Tag Archives: Trials of Blood and Steel

January 1, 2016 · 9:27 pm

Thoughts on Publishing – Infinitas Publishing Status Report

First day of the new year, and time for a status report. 🙂

Magic’s Stealing: I’m currently working on promoting Magic’s Stealing. Primarily, I’ve been looking to get this book into local bookstores (Three nearby stores currently carry copies of the book. Woot!) The next step is holding book signings to raise awareness of the book’s existence. I’m also planning to hold a Goodreads give-away, so look for that to come soon. Isaac and I intend to get a P.O. Box so we don’t have to use our personal address when sending out copies. We may also start a newsletter once we get the P.O. Box address (since newsletters require a mailing address be included).

The Shadow War: While I haven’t made much progress writing the second book of The Wishing Blade series, I have gotten quite a bit plotted for both the second and third books. My hope is to finish editing what I already have written, then write both the end of book two, and the parts I already know of book three (or at least create a detailed outline).

The Multiverse Chronicles: Trials of Blood and Steel: Our beta-reader has given us comments on the first six episodes, so I’m ready to make the polishing edits to those episodes. I’m almost finished editing episode seven. Once we release Battle Decks, we’ll also start releasing this series. In the meantime, I’m trying to get ahead with writing these episodes. Isaac and I have discussed releasing each episodes on Friday (on their own separate blog page), thus taking place of these Friday blog posts. The goal is to give me more time to get an episode edited each week.

Battle Decks: Trials of Blood and Steel: Isaac and I recently reviewed our proof copies of the basic and deluxe editions. We’ve sent a few questions to The Game Crafter regarding printing, and in the meantime, we’ve got a few ideas about improving the rules document for clarity. We also decided to go ahead and make the rules document a booklet after shuffling through six separate pages, which was proving to be a real pain. It may still be a while before we release the game for sale, but we want this game to be polished as possible. Also, if all goes well, we’re hoping to demo this game at a new, local convention in February. More on that later, once we’ve solidified the details. 😉

SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: I’m plugging away on covers as usual, and I’m going to start writing the due dates in a planner to keep track of when I need to start each proof to get them completed by the preferred time.

Beta-reading: I have a book I’m beta-reading for a friend in the writing group I attend, and this is going much slower than I expected (partially due to all the recent holiday activity). On the bright side, I’m taking a few vacation days in January, so that should give me more time to read and make notes, and I plan to include reading time in my planner as well.

Distant Horizon: At this point, Isaac and I feel that the basic story is complete. It’s been through many different beta-readers, and we’ve let it sit while working on other projects. I’ve recently started working on basic formatting for this particular story, with the intent of looking for typos and minor grammatical issues. We don’t expect to release Distant Horizon just yet, and we don’t currently have a projected release date. However I want to start working on proofing, since I know that takes awhile. Depending on how well that goes, the release date may be sooner or later. The front cover is complete, however, with only a few minor changes expected.

Video Blogging: Back in October, Isaac and I started doing video blogs with readings from my stories. If you haven’t already, check out the Infinitas Publishing Youtube channel to listen to chapters of Magic’s Stealing and various short stories.

That’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed this post. 🙂

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November 27, 2015 · 7:51 pm

Thoughts on Writing – Tightening Prose to Improve a Scene

Isaac and I are getting close to having all the edits made to our most recent version of Battle Decks, which reminded me that I needed to continue editing the blog series that goes with it. So, at the most recent writer’s club meeting, I decided to work on episode five of The Multiverse Chronicles rather than The Shadow War, which I’m currently doing  background plotting and research for. Since The Multiverse Chronicles will start coming out before that book, I didn’t mind putting The Shadow War on a temporary hold.

Anyway, there are three sections in episode five of The Multiverse Chronicles: Trials of Blood and Steel. The first section details interactions between a dejected pigeon, the taskmaster, and the general. The second deals with Trish and the colonel, and the third (the obligatory end-sequence at the end of the episode) with a group of airship pirates. The last two scenes I’m fairly happy with, and I’m ready to send to our beta reader. However, there’s something still irking me about the first section.

My instincts said that the scene dilly-dallied too long. So, after editing the general episode, I went back to the first scene and began looking for ways to tighten the prose and make the wording more concise.

However, when I looked at the resulting edits, I found that the same chunk of information was actually a few words longer than the former introduction. But wordy sections had been tightened, offering room for stronger world and character building.

Let’s take a look at the previous intro.

A lone dragoon pigeon flew over gently swaying trees. It had a very important mission, which could not be deterred. For on its back, in a tiny, dark green capsule, the pigeon carried a message for General Buford of the Queen’s Army.

It was an important message, as all messages sent via pigeon were. (Thus far, the prose feels stilted, because the sentences are fairly similar.)

The pigeon swept over a sleeping red dragon with harsh, glimmering scales, then skimmed through a squad of pterosaurs, quickly diving to avoid having its tail nipped as some scoundrel drake’s lunch. (Feels lengthy). A few minutes later, the pigeon arrived at a large wooden building that smelled of hay and feathers. The bird swooped into its loft, surpassed the landing board, then took roost in the one of the homing cages. It cooed, head held high and chest out, standing tall while it waited for the pigeon fancier to come take its message.

The pigeon ruffled its feathers proudly. A successful mission, to be sure.

After tightening the prose and adding voice, this was the result:

A lone dragoon pigeon with a very important mission flew between gently swaying trees. (I combined a couple sentences, and changed how the bird is flying in regards to the trees). It could not allow itself to be deterred. (Here we get that the pigeon is the one who does not want to be deterred… not that it can’t happen in general). For on its back—in a tiny, dark green capsule—the pigeon carried a message for General Buford of the Queen’s Army. (I’ve found that using the dashes help separate the thought better and adds flavor).

The message was of the utmost importance, as were all messages sent via pigeon. (I clarified “the message” instead of “it,” and changed the placement of “were” so that the sentence ends on a stronger visual word).

The bird swept over a sleeping red dragon with harsh, glimmering scales, then skimmed through a squad of pterosaurs. It dived, avoiding having its tail nipped by some scoundrel drake wanting an early lunch. (Early lunch helps imply that the pterosaur is acting out of bounds per the pigeon’s rules… (adds voice), and splitting the sentences adds urgency to the action).

A few minutes later, the pigeon arrived at a large wooden building. The musky scent of hay and feathers wafted through the air. (Splitting the sentences helps pacing, and we get a better visual). The bird swooped into its loft, surpassed the landing board, and then took roost in the one of the homing cages. It cooed, head held high and chest out, ruffling its feathers as it waited for the pigeon fancier to take its message.

A successful mission, to be sure. (I combined a couple sentences, slowing the pace a tad bit, but also cut needless repetition.)

Overall, I’m much happier with the latest edit. After tightening the prose and adding a bit more voice, the scene has a tiny bit more “pizazz.”

In one of my previous posts, “What does a serial episode need?” I included a list of traits I wanted to instill into each episode:

  • A strong sense of character, and relationships between characters. (The updated version includes a little more of the pigeon’s personality.)
  • Both humor and serious notes… usually involving some bit of quirkiness. (By adding more of the pigeon’s personality, we added the quirkiness.)
  • A strong sense of world-building. (This remained about the same for the intro, except that I tightened and condensed points. However, I suspect that I need to build on this further into this scene.)
  • Conflict and/or tension. (Will the pigeon deliver its message?)
  • A reasonable beginning, middle, and end. (This selection only shows the intro, but the end of the scene will show the pigeon flying off with a new message.)
  • Something that propels this episode into the next. (This isn’t seen in this particular section, but the end of the scene introduces Trish’s arrival coming in the next scene.)

I also re-read another post I wrote, “Creating Tension,” which reminded me to look into the scene and see if the tension and point of view lagged.

I hope you’ve found this post enjoyable. Have you found any tips for tightening your prose (even if it caused your word count to increase)? 🙂

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September 28, 2015 · 8:21 pm

Thoughts on Writing – Subplots and End Scenes

Isaac has finished writing the rough draft of Trials of Blood and Steel, and I’m about half-way through editing his draft (with plans to go back at the halfway point and start polishing, that way we can start releasing episodes), so Isaac is now working on the little segments that go at the end of each episode.

We’ve been calling these segments end caps (a cross between recap and end of the scene? I’m not sure how we started calling it this), but I realized that wasn’t the actual name for those scenes. Did a bit of research, and they aren’t exactly a post-credits scene/stinger (they don’t come after the “credits,” just at the end of the episode, and they aren’t a teaser, since they come at the end of the episode rather than at the beginning. They also aren’t finales or cappers or endgames, per Merriam-webster.com.

So… I’m still not sure what to call these segments.

For now I’ll call them end scenes (though even that isn’t technically correct, per this site).

Anyway, our goal is to have a small scene at the end of each episode which provides a bit of extra background without being required for the main plot. Preferably, it will be something that makes readers wonder what’s going to happen next, and how this scene will get tangled into the main story.

For example, this is one of the end scenes (Still semi-rough), which references a carrier pigeon that was set loose earlier that episode:

Miles into its flight, the pigeon reached the border of the northern Prussian forest. The bird flapped tirelessly, trained for such flights, though it planned to take a food-break once it reached the other side.

Or it would have had a break, if it had made it that far.

A pair of glowing gold eyes spotted the pigeon from the ground, waited until the bird was within range, then lifted its rifle, sighted the target, and fired.

The shot echoed across the trees, but due to a slight miscalculation in wind speed, the bullet only clipped the bird’s wing. The pigeon faltered, but it had been trained as an elite war bird. It compensated for its broken wing, angling its beak and tail feathers in its best attempt to direct its plummet away from its assailant. The wind coasted under its good wing, and the bird directed its dive into the thicker part of the nearby woods.

The marksman waited as the bird disappeared into the trees. Despite being ordered to retrieve the bird, it turned around on its spiny legs and began its trek back to camp. The bird had fallen into the Deep.

The Deep… even in the marksman’s strained memory… resonated with its core and sent a tingle of fear through its metallic body.

Despite being a small part of the woods, no one who entered the Deep ever came out.

The goal of this scene is to raise the stakes (an important message has now been delayed), to set up the strange, metallic marksmen (which will become a major foe later), and to do the first foreshadowing of the Deep (which our heroes will encounter very soon).

Technically speaking, this scene isn’t absolutely necessary to the main plot.

It does raise the stakes, but if we remove this from the story, the rest of the plot would still make sense, though we might lose some of the richness.

This is, effectively, a subplot.

One of the interesting things about watching Isaac add the end scenes after writing all of the other episodes is seeing how they effectively develop into a subplot (mostly detailing what the bad guys are up to).

Not only that, but the end scenes significantly boost the word count.

Something to keep in mind if you have a bare-bones story that you want to develop further–or need to increase the word count of–is that you can add subplots.

Are there any plot threads that readers might find interesting that add to the story?

On the other hand, if you need to reduce your word count, cutting a subplot may be the way to go, particularly if there’s a thread that slows things down rather than keeps the pace moving. (If you need a breather, a subplot may be a nice way to release tension).

The next decision Isaac and I need to make is whether to have these end scenes be a separate post of their own, so it’s clear that they don’t have to be read for the main story to make sense (though I certainly enjoy them), or whether to include them at the end of the episode, perhaps with a telling Meanwhile… to denote that these are something separate from the main story.

I hope you’ve found this post helpful. 🙂 Have any thoughts about subplots you’ve found to be effective or ineffective?

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