Give The Gift Of Books (And Help Authors End The Year On A High Note)

Well, it's that time again. We're prepping turkeys, eyeing Christmas shopping lists, and plotting how we're going to survive the rest of the year with our combined sanity and waistlines intact. And that means it's also time for me to take a moment to gently remind folks that authors are trying to close out the year in the black rather than the red.

So if you've got folks on your list who like books (or that you just wish read a little more than they do), I have a couple of recommendations for you this year! So please take a moment to go down the list, and see if there's something for the special someones you're hoping to get memorable gifts for.

Or if you're making a list of books to get with your incoming gift cards. That is also acceptable!

Help us help you!

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more! And, of course, check me out on Blue Sky, since that's what we're talking about today!

Shout Outs For Authors I'd Recommend This Holiday Season!

All right, first and foremost, I want folks to buy my books. So whether you want to get a copy of Old Soldiers for someone who's a fan of dystopian sci fi thrillers featuring alien/human hybrid shock troops, or you want to check out the Hardboiled Cat series where Leo sticks his whiskers into the darker doings of New York City in Marked Territory or Painted Cats, I would absolutely recommend you give those books to as many folks on your list as possible!

There's even a great audio preview for that first title, courtesy of Altered State Adventures, which you should check out over on YouTube!

With that said, though, I know there are regular readers here who have already read all of my work. You may even have gotten copies of my RPG Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic, and subscribed to the Azukail Games YouTube channel where I regularly share free audio drama fiction. But if you've already gone through my catalog (or it's just not quite right for the people on your list), I would recommend checking out the following authors for your gift-giving needs!

Author #1: Alice Liddell

Does this not tell you everything you need to know?

Alice Liddell, also known as Lauren Masterson, is a talented author who has made her mark in a number of different genres. If you have anyone on your list who loves period dramas and gothic romances with vampires, get a copy of Succumb To Darkness. If you have someone who loves Japanese history, handmade art, and a well-researched story, consider checking out Geisha Hands instead! Fantastical mermaid romance? Yep, you can find that in her book Love of The Sea.

It's actually easier to check out her author pages Lauren Masterson and Little Alice than it is to list all her titles here. And just as an additional plug, if you are interested in learning the ins and outs of being an author, or if you enjoy cozy gaming streams, check out her YouTube channels Alice The Author and KHR Arts respectively. She can absolutely use all the subscribers (and views) you can give, if you want to make her holiday season that much better!

Author #2: Clinton Boomer

If you haven't checked this out, I'd highly recommend it!

Most folks who are familiar with Clinton Boomer's work know him as a TTRPG writer. He's contributed to the Pathfinder setting of Golarion, and he's published a lot of World of Darkness supplements (including 100 of the NPCs in the 200 Black Spiral Dancer Kinfolk supplement I wrote with him for Werewolf: The Apocalypse). However, in addition to all the gaming content he's put out, he also has a handful of other books I'd recommend folks check out!

The most popular are Team Murder Hobo: Assemble, and its sequel Team Murder Hobo: Flaming Love Icosohedron, which are essentially collections of hilarious moments between various members of an adventuring party. If you read between the lines you can find some kind of emerging plot, but mostly the books are just there for the lulz, and they make solid gifts for any fantasy or D&D lover in your life. For those who want something a little more serious, though, I'd recommend checking out his modern fantasy novel The Hole Behind Midnight. A tale of murder, detective work, and the things that happen in that nowhere-time just after the end of one day and the start of another, it's a compelling read! You can find these books, and more, on Clinton Boomer's author page.

Who Would You Recommend?

Full disclosure, I generally try to use this space to big up folks in my community whose work I think deserves a wider audience. But since Alice is my partner, and Clinton a friend of mine, I can see how this might seem a bit biased to readers out there. So let me ask you, who would you recommend for a holiday shout out? If you have an indie author whose work you think should be seen by folks, tell us about them in the comments below! What do they write, why are they good, and where can we find their books?

Let's get as many folks as we can into the hands of fresh readers!

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list.

Write Fiction, Not Exposition (Get To The Meat of The Story)

Have you ever been reading a book, and for some reason the author insists on giving you the recipe blog treatment? You know, you came here for a story about international intrigue and spies, but for some reason the author insists on going on about historical events from twenty years ago? Or when you wanted a blood-pumping high fantasy adventure, but you're five pages in and all you've gotten is a complicated history of the royal family which involves a lot of "begetting," but you have no idea who your protagonist is, and what they're actually trying to do?

This is something all of us fall prey to sometimes... but generally speaking, we should focus on writing fiction, not on filling our pages with endless exposition.

We don't need this much backstory... trust me.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more!

People Are Here For The Story

I've said this before in a variety of ways throughout this blog, but for those who've never heard this before, the story is what draws the audience. Your audience might enjoy your worldbuilding, or your evocative language, or the intricacies of the time period your story is set in... but first and foremost people are here for the characters, and the story. Most of us, on some level, know this.

But a lot of the time we get stuck trying to give context to the point that it eclipses everything else.

The tower was a marble-floored monstrosity. The marble had been shipped from Gandahar over 1,000 years ago, and it was the result of the Treaty of Ardun, signed by...

This is, in some ways, a result of our desire as creators to tell our readers the entire context for the thing we're creating. Because yes, there's the surface-level appearance of things, but there's almost always deeper context for our worlds, our characters, and the things our audience is seeing. But the question we always have to ask ourselves is, "Do the readers need this?" Because if they don't need it, then as much as it might hurt us to do, we shouldn't put it in the text. That space can be better utilized for something else.

However, there are going to be times where that exposition is necessary for the audience to understand the story. But there are a few, simple things you should keep in mind as a creator when it comes to including it.

- Save it for the quieter scenes between the harder, more emotional beats of the story.

- Work it into the flow of the fiction, instead of giving your audience a Shakesperian aside.

The first tip is specifically aimed at the urge we have to do a long-form lead-in for readers. We've all heard that we need to hook the reader as quickly as possible, and if someone feels like they're reading a history textbook, or the opening lines of a physics experiment, that isn't going to drag them into immersion. If anything, it's going to do the opposite. Focus on your fiction, your characters, and what they're actually doing, because you want your reader dragged along in their wake, curious to see more about who these people are, and the adventure they're going on. Exposition can wait until later.

Secondly, make sure that you chop up the exposition, and figure out ways to work it into the natural flow of the story. Whether it comes up in conversation between your hero and their guide who is trying to give them a tour of the city, or it's mentioned as part of a political declaration and ceremony, or it comes up when someone overhears a bit of gossip, it's typically better to work the information your audience needs into dialogue, or scene-setting description. Asides, on the whole, are a terrible idea (with the exception of comedy and parodies, because it's then drawing attention to this tendency that can slam on the brakes of reader interest).

Remember, people who are coming to your book haven't spent months to years living in this world, and they haven't fallen in love with it yet. This is your first impression, and you want your reader to be taken with it, and immediately agree to one of those dates that lasts practically until sunrise. Don't blow your shot by launching into the origin of the sandstone found in the ancient ruins of the lost tomb... focus on the fact there's an angry mummy rushing out of the darkness to tear apart the intruders who disturbed its slumber!

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Using Real World Slang and Swearing In Your Fantastical Story (Dos and Don'ts)

This week I want to talk about a very particular trend that seems to be cropping up in a lot of books. It is, simply put, the tendency that a lot of writers seem to have of letting modern colloquial slang and swear words just drop out of the mouths of characters in settings where that kind of language simply doesn't make sense. Whether you're out on the rim of a far-off asteroid belt, or riding shaggy aurochs across the frozen tundra of Marvosa, the words your characters use shape the story... and if you end up having them sound like someone from small town America somewhere in the mid 20-teens, that's going to shatter readers' immersion.

"Yeet!" Scarbrand roared, hurling the great spear toward the charging frost giant...

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more!

Why You Shouldn't Do This

There are a lot of books that have done this in recent years. Fourth Wing, Quicksilver, and A Court of Thorns and Roses to name a few. However, each of these acts as a good example of why using modern language in a non-modern story without thinking is a problem... because it undermines your world building, and it takes your readers out of the story.

Now, for clarity, I'm not talking about digging deep into the cultural origin of words here. If you're writing a story about a war on the other side of the galaxy between alien factions, and one of them has a heavily-armored vehicle with a large main gun and additional support weapons, you can still call it a tank. The fact that it's completely divorced from the weapon development during the first World War on Earth when the British tried to hide the development of these armored vehicles by claiming they were new kinds of water tanks (hence the name) isn't the sort of thing that's going to take readers out of the story for the most part.

Yeah, this one you can get away with.

No, for this case what I'm talking about is using modern slang, or truly modern phrases, but letting them come out of the mouths of characters who have no business talking like this. As an example, if you have a high fantasy story about dragon riders, and one of them wants to compliment the other on a great feat of riding, or bravery in battle, they wouldn't clap them on the shoulder and say something like, "Based maneuver, comrade," or, "Poggers flying! You're lucky Skyrake didn't yeet you off."

If that example got a laugh out of you, good. However, the point remains that the way people talk, and the words they use, are a part of the underlying nature of the world your story takes place in. So if you're going to have particular phrases in your world, or particular pieces of slang, it's worth asking why they exist, and if they make sense given the culture of the world you've set up.

Just like how an urukhai declaring, "Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys!" means that there are restaurants in Mordor, and that these magically-grown murder monsters understand the concept of a menu in the first place, you can sometimes get away with one or two instances... but not if you're using it every, single conversation.

When You Can Get Away With It

As with every rule, there are always going to be exceptions. The first one, which might be a slightly controversial take, is that you can get away with these words if there is some kind of explanation that makes sense in-world. If you're writing a historical fantasy, for instance, you might come into contact with The Tiffany Problem, which is when we don't realize how far back into our history certain ideas, concepts, or even names can go. The other side of this coin is when you have stories set in the far future, but there are still bits of our colloquial language that have survived the test of time, even if the exact origin and meaning has been lost by those who've adopted particular turns of phrase.

More on the Tiffany Problem in the video below, if you haven't seen it yet.

The second time when you can more or less get away with modern parlance is when it's a word that conveys a particular feeling, but you don't want to make up something unique to this setting. As a for-instance, lots of fantasy novels will have made-up swear words in them ("bags" was a common one in the fantasy novels by Terry Goodkind, for instance), but it's quite common for grittier or more hard-edged books like the Witcher series, or the First Law series, to just use modern swear words. Shit, fuck, damn, and so on are all perfectly serviceable, and they've existed in some way for hundreds, if not thousands of years. So even if these aren't the specific swear words we're hearing (if you subscribe to the idea that fantasy stories are written in the native language of that world, and we are seeing a translated version of the tale), the meaning is more important than the specific word in this context. And sometimes made-up swear words just don't convey the right feeling.

The third situation where you can get away with this, and where it might even be the whole point of the story you're writing, is when it is done for comedic effect. This is particularly true when we stray into the realm of parody. For example, perhaps you want to have a traditional high fantasy story, but all the characters talk like they're in a high school teen drama from the 1990s. Maybe you want to write a cyberpunk novel set in an alternate year 2020, but while the technology is all vastly different, the subcultures and slang are largely the same, which is kind of a hilarious juxtaposition. Perhaps you want the aliens to talk in an ancient Earth dialect because that was the most recent trasmission they received, so they all sound and act like they're from the 1950s, even though the book is set much further along in the future than that.

This is perhaps the most important thing to remember... the juxtaposition of something familiar from our world with a fantastical setting is inherently funny in a lot of ways. So if you're doing this for comedy, it's going to go over pretty well. But if you want people to take these characters seriously, the way they're talking is going to be a pretty big issue to look past, even if the rest of the story is meant to be poe-faced... and honestly, that might just make it funnier.

As an example, check out my mystery-solving noir cat novels Marked Territory and Painted Cats. They're inherently ridiculous... which is part of what makes their very serious tone just add to the joke!

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Don't Wait Until A Series Is Done To Check Out The Books

There is a common attitude among readers (and particularly readers of sci fi and fantasy) that if an author is writing a series that they aren't going to get into it until that series is over and done. They want to be sure that the author isn't going to die halfway through, or that the series isn't going to peter out before they get invested in it. And while that is a fair point, I want to address something that's extremely harmful about this attitude toward these specific projects, as well as the profession in general.

Because if the author can't eat because no one is buying the series, then they aren't going to be able to continue said series, and all the misgivings end up becoming self-fulfilling prophecies.

Something to keep in mind.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more!

Authors Can't Do What We Do Without Audience Support

On the one hand, I very much see where readers come from on this issue. Because if you're the sort of person who likes to read series, then you like to really get invested in the story. So if there's only one or two books out, you might not feel like you're really on solid ground just yet. Even if the early entries are good, you don't want to jump in with both feet and get really into this world and these characters only for an author to leave the series on a cliffhanger, or for a publisher to decide future installments aren't worth publishing.

And this could happen all on its own. However, lack of participation practically guarantees the series will die before it really gets a chance to live.

For those who were curious.

This is the way the process goes. An author decides they want to write a series. They finish the first novel. That novel is published, either traditionally or through a self-publishing platform of some variety. The author is, essentially, giving the audience a sample of the story. They're saying, "This is the story I want to tell. If it's a story you all want to see more of, then I have more to tell you!"

Under ideal circumstances, this first book will get the audience's attention, and enough people will buy copies that the publisher considers it a success, and greenlights the next book in the series. The author will then get to work on the next book, using the earnings from the first one to help pay bills and stay afloat long enough to tell more of the story. This process then rinses and repeats until one of two things happens; the author runs out of story, or the sales peter off to the point that the publisher no longer considers it a valid investment.

The problem with folks who are, "Waiting until it's done to get into it," is that you're actively denying a series and its creator the oxygen they need to actually finish the project in the first place.

As a good example, consider my Hardboiled Cat series linked in the pics above. I've got a dozen more stories I'd love to tell about Leo and the other street beasts of his setting, as well as a whole spinoff series about the kitten Trouble when he grows up to become a streetwise stray in his own right. However, I'm not writing those right now because I literally cannot afford to. I sell a few copies online every quarter, and move a couple more at conventions, but overall these novels can take as much as a year of effort to write, and they just don't move the numbers for me to justify adding to this series, even though I'm very certain my publisher would happily take more books about the rough, brutal lives of this hard-nosed Maine Coon heavy.

However, if these books suddenly moved a couple hundred copies each? Or a couple thousand because someone on BookTok gave me a shoutout, or an influential furry told their fans how much they loved my novels? I would have a fresh notebook out and the plot of book three figured out down to the chapter by end-of-day tomorrow.

Authors Need Support Or We (And Our Projects) Die

I've said it dozens of times before, but audience engagement is literally what decides whether creators live or die, and whether our projects succeed or fail. It's not just novels, either. Everything from YouTube videos, to podcasts, to comic books depends on the audience turning up for installment after installment, giving us your eyes, your ears, and your approval. Whether that comes in the form of purchases, watch/listen hours, or straight up Patreon donations, your engagement directly translates into the money that we use to pay our bills, and keep telling our stories.

And if you don't provide that support until we reach the end... well, that makes it that much more likely we won't be able to afford to reach the end.

Now, that's not to say that you must support every creator out there who is writing a series, or that you owe anyone your purchasing power, your reviews, your engagement, etc. However, if a series has caught your interest, whether it's on Netflix, Spotify, YouTube, or it's good, old-fashioned print books, don't sit on it and wait. Authors and publishers alike judge whether a creative endeavor is worth pursuing further based on the reaction of the public, and the money it's making. So if something looks interesting, but there's only a few installments out, go check them out and see if you like it! If you don't, well, now you don't have to worry about it anymore. But if you do like it, and you do want it to keep going so you can see how things turn out, now you know this is worth putting in your efforts.

Yes, you might end up with a George R.R. Martin scenario where you're waiting for years on end for him to finish the damn series. But you know something? At least you know Martin didn't give up on writing it because it wasn't making money, and since no one seemed interested he moved on to another project, or had to go back to a job doing something else to keep the lights on.

Speaking of Series and Support...

While I'm on the subject of series and audience support, there's a project I proposed about a year ago that I've been trying to get off the ground. It's a dark modern fantasy audio drama series set in the Chronicles of Darkness that I've tentatively titled Windy City Shadows, the first season of which can best be described as fairy tale John Wick set in modern day Chicago.

If that sounds like something you'd be keen to check out, then you can get the details in Windy City Shadows: A Chronicles of Darkness Podcast Proposal, or watch the video I made on the subject a while back!

The short version is that, while the show would be a podcast available on a variety of platforms, one of those platforms will be on the Azukail Games YouTube channel... and before we start in on it, we need to get that channel monetized! So if you want to see this idea come to fruition, help us reach that first goal by subscribing to the channel, as well as watching and sharing our videos so we can get the final 500 and change hours we need for YouTube to agree to share ad revenue with us!

Because once we cross that goal, that's when I can start revving the engine on this bigger, more involved project... and I'd love it if all of you out there could join me!

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!