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Thoughts on the craft of writing fantasy and fantasy gaming, from building believable worlds to telling stories that keep readers turning pages.

A Riddle of Scars

And so it begins … again.

I have begun the process of writing another book. This will be my fourth novel, continuing the Taesia series. My vision is to write a trilogy of trilogies. Three series of three books each. The first trilogy is The Taesian Chronicles, with book one: Ohlen’s Arrow, book two: Ohlen’s Bane, and book three: Paragon’s Call.

A Riddle of Scars will be the first book of the second trilogy, or book four in the overall series. The second trilogy is tentatively called The Pillars of Taesia.

Currently I’m in the planning phase of the project. I’m finalizing the plot design and character names. Next steps include character development, where I create write-ups about each main character. These describe their appearance, background, motivations, fears, and other key elements. I refer to these notes when writing scenes and dialog to make sure I am staying consistent with their personalities and actions.

After that, I’ll be writing up my Plot Event List. Some would call this an outline, but I don’t because it’s just a list, not something in outline format. My Plot Event List is a series of single sentence descriptions of every scene in the book, arranged in the order they will appear. I use this as a roadmap when primary writing begins.

Although I don’t have an ETA on when the book will be finished, I do hope to have the primary composition completed by mid to late spring 2019.

Stay tuned!

Ohlen’s Bane now available in paperback

I am very happy to announce that Ohlen’s Bane, book two of The Taesian Chronicles, is now available as a paperback from Amazon.com.

Ohlen and his close ally, the irrepressible and honorable Kha’ard, pursue a deadly killer into a maze of underground tunnels after a close friend is assassinated. On the surface, the hardscrabble mining town of Eeron is attacked by a powerful race of creatures seeking to wipe out the humans that live there. Will the unexpected arrival of Eeron’s oldest enemy spell its doom?

Time Keeps On Slippin’ Slippin’

Do you have Steve Miller stuck in your head now? Sorry.

I look at the calendar and see that it’s October 14th and feel blown away by how quickly the last two months have gone by. I think September only had 17 days in it.

Since August I have spent most afternoons practicing guitar, keyboard, bass and drums. I’m learning all four instruments with the goal of writing music inspired by my first novel, Ohlen’s Arrow. That is going well but except for savants, learning to play and compose music is not an overnight endeavor. I’ve played all these instruments in the past, so fortunately I’m not starting from ground zero, but I still have a long way to go.

I’ve also been thinking about continuing my Taesia series of novels. The next step would be to write book 5. I already have the bulk of the plot figured out, but haven’t formally nailed down the outline. An avid reader of mine recently shared their view that I really need to keep writing and continue the story. We’ll see.

Currently I’m reading Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy. Although it’s a real page turner, I’m struck by how expository Clancy is. The old maxim, “Show me, don’t tell me” is one Clancy apparently never heard. Unlike popular belief, rules are not made to be broken but you certainly can if you know about them and have a good reason. In Clancy’s case, this book wouldn’t work without all the ‘tell me’ expository text.

In the cycling part of my life, I recently purchased a Wahoo KICKR Core smart trainer. I previously had a traditional spin bike but sold it as it was uncomfortable and had very poor ergonomics. The smart trainer will be hooked up to Zwift for a virtual riding experience. I may write a review after I’ve used it a bit. It will be nice to train on my own bike (Trek Domane AL5) rather than a rigid and poor substitution like a spin bike.

The editing phase of a story’s lifecycle

In the life-cycle of Ohlen’s Arrow, I’m in the editing phase. I’ve hired an editor and we’ve been going through revisions one chapter at a time. I gave her the story as Word files, one per chapter. She then returns those Word files with track-changes turned on. I open up the Word file and place it next to my Scrivener screen. I review each suggested edit and make the changes in Scrivener as I go along.

At this point very few of the edits involve plot items, although I did rework a conversation my lead character has with two friends at the beginning of the story. This helps establish some key plot elements that didn’t quite fit later on in the story.

The bulk of this round of editing has been spent on sentence structure, grammar, and word choices. It’s like a musician being told how to hold their instrument. What I love about this phase of the “I’m writing a novel” process is it makes the finished product better. It also makes me a better writer.

Latest rides, and a new book

Recently the weather has been cooperative enough for me to get both bikes ridden, my 2007 Suzuki V-Strom 650 and my 2012 Suzuki GSX-R750. I try to ride each bike at least once every other week, rather than winterizing them and letting them sit. They only get non-ethanol fuel as well, and I think this keeps them in better shape.

On the V-Strom, I went up highway 224 to Ripplebrook. They are working on a hillside prone to landslides, so there are some construction delays to contend with. This is between milepost 31 to 37. At the Ripplebrook ranger station, I kept heading south on NF46 toward Detroit. We’ve had a lot of low-elevation snow this winter so I didn’t expect to get far, but I wanted to see how things were looking. The road has a few new potholes but is in otherwise good shape.

I had to turn back just past where NF42 heads east toward highway 26. Despite this, it was a fantastic ride and it felt good to stretch the V-Strom’s legs a bit.

In other news, I have published my third novel. It is titled Paragon’s Call and is the culmination of The Taesian Chronicles trilogy. It is available for Kindle on Amazon.com, and is free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers.

The sunset of an old hero
The dawn of a new foe
Paragon’s Call is the third and final book in The Taesian Chronicles trilogy. In this exciting and fast-paced conclusion, we pick up the story a year after the Battle of Eeron from book two, Ohlen’s Bane. Ohlen and his comrades, Therran and Ahmahn, discover the novaari, dangerous beasts that are half man, half animal. Ohlen is conscripted by Emperor Percy Saltos to lead a ragtag group of criminal misfits called Paragons, who are charged with seeking out these monsters and destroying them. But not everyone wants them to succeed.

You can’t be a writer if you don’t write

After adopting the idea of a plot event list, my productivity on Ohlen’s Arrow has been much improved. I write on weekends and have been cranking out 2,000-5,000 words per day. I’ve tried to get some writing in on weekday evenings but by the time I get home from a long day at the office, my brain doesn’t fire on all its creative cylinders, so I use that time for proofreading or just relaxing.

Going for long periods of time without writing is inefficient. I have to read over several chapters just to get back into the groove of the story before I can write a single new word. Maintaining momentum, however, is actually much easier. I can add a page or two, or even a single paragraph, without much prep time at all. I’ve also been making a conscious effort to avoid other projects lately, devoting my weekend time to the book. Avoiding fragmentation has added to my productivity.

Whether my book gets published or sells a single copy is irrelevant. I’m writing, and that’s what’s most important. There’s time enough for that publishing and money stuff later.

Outside help

No writer is an island. You can’t edit your own work. These are just some of the sayings that highlight the fact that writers need outside help in their effort to write and publish their works.

For Ohlen’s Arrow, I have engaged the professional services of an illustrator to design the book’s cover and the world map inside, and an editor for the text contained within. Up to this point my outside help has entailed the reviews of nearly a dozen volunteer beta readers.

Writing a book is an exciting process, and frankly, I’m glad I don’t have to do it alone.

Ohlen’s Arrow: Part II and the introduction of a new character

I have started to write the second part of my book which introduces the reader to a second main character, Daena. This woman had been banished from the village of Tarun 30 years prior to the present time for abducting the twin sister of another main character. Daena is a troubled woman, tormented by visitors and voices, and writing her is a fun experience because her perspective on the world around her is so unique.

Whereas my main character, Ohlen — the focus of part I — is somewhat straightforward, Daena is complex. By today’s enlightened perspective she is clearly mentally ill, but in the age of the story she is visited and controlled by sinister forces. Daena is also an extremely tough woman, demonstrated by just how much crap she goes through in her life and still comes through alive; severely scarred, both physically and emotionally, but alive nonetheless.

The challenge I’m facing now is which writing god do I serve in my approach. Do I write in a way that is a purely creative expression of myself? Or do I write in a way that fits the formula for what will sell? Great artists and musicians and authors are not commended for their ability to masterfully fit a known formula that everyone finds familiar and comforting. But at the same time they don’t deviate from familiar patterns so drastically that they cannot be understood. I am facing a fork in the road and I am torn deciding which path to take. To the left is the path my creativity urges me to follow, my own path. To the right is the path prescribed and documented and mapped out by countless others, a relatively sure thing but not a path that appeals to me.

It will be interesting to see which one I take. Even I don’t know at this point.

Michael J. Sullivan short story contest results

Although the winner of Michael J. Sullivan’s short story contest hasn’t been announced, or even decided as of this writing, I did find out that my submission, The Orphan’s Maker, did not make it into the final round.

My story made it into the top 15, from a large group of quality applications, so I consider this a win. The story itself is going to become the Prologue when I release all three books on paperback for The Taesian Chronicles, so the effort wasn’t wasted.

I appreciate the consideration Michael gave to my story, and to Robin (his wife and editor), for her courtesy. I wish the winner luck, and I wish Michael great success with The Death of Dulgath.

A writer as well as a rider

Did you know I am a published author?

I have written three novels — a trilogy! — available at Amazon.com individually and as a single volume. All are available as eBooks, and most are available in paperback; I’m currently working on releasing the third book in paperback form.

The trilogy is called The Taesian Chronicles.

Book one is Ohlen’s Arrow. “Vengeance drives him. Can honor save him?”

Book two is Ohlen’s Bane. “There is no honor among brothers.”

Book three is Paragon’s Call. “The sunset of an old hero. The dawn of a new foe.”

I am currently in the process of writing the fourth book, which will be the first of three books in a second trilogy. Stay tuned.

If you want to learn more about my writing career and discover more about the books I write, be sure to visit my author’s blog at www.ruckerworks.com.

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Writing instead of Riding

First-person or third-person?

Prequel short story and a Michael J. Sullivan contest