Take A Moment And Check Out My New Publisher Misti Media (If You Haven't Yet)

I mentioned a while back in So My Novels Have Been Unpublished (For Now) that 3 of my novels have been taken off the market, but I have a new publisher that's picked them up and loaded them into the magazine for release. At time of last check, though, they probably aren't going to pull the trigger on re-releasing my books until January of 2027... there were a lot of us that got swept up in the Histria Books purge, and there's plenty of titles that will be coming out in the new year along with me.

But since we're drawing close to the shopping season, and a lot of folks like to give books as gifts, I figured I'd mention some of the Misti Media titles to whet folks' appetites for the re-release of Old Soldiers, and my Hardboiled Cat series of books!

There's a lot of mysteries out there... so why wait?

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!

So What Sort of Titles Do They Have?

Misti Media has been around for a hot minute, and they currently have 72 titles on the market, all of which are available on Drive Thru Fiction (as well as a few other places, if you find a title you want to get from a different outlet). And while there's a pretty good variety of options out there, they've got quite a lot of mysteries and thrillers out there, which I'd definitely recommend checking out.

Two of the titles that most caught my attention (and this was before I signed my current contract) were (I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight: Crime Fiction Inspired By One-Hit Wonders, as well as Gag Me With A Spoon: Crime Fiction Inspired By The Music of The 80s. These books were the reason I was pretty sure that Leo and his tales were going to fit in pretty well over at Misti Media. I also have a soft spot for anthologies, and since they're hard as hell to move copies of, I figured I'd give them a shout out this week!

Seriously, give it a look if you haven't!

However, if you're someone who is more in the mood for a novel instead of a bunch of bite-sized stories, and you'd like something on the cozier end of things, consider checking out Gone To The Dogs (The Gumshoe Chicks Mystery #1). There's a murder, a dog show, and a group of old high school friends who get together to find a killer. For those who prefer something more of a thriller, though, the alternate history novel Russian Amerika is definitely worth giving more than a cursory glance. In a 1980s where Russia still owns Alaska, this novel deals with a terrifying scenario that could leave bodies floating in the ocean, and international tensions rising higher than ever before.

So, while I'm sure at least a few folks out there are waiting for my books to get what I hope is their final re-release, consider looking through the rest of the Misti Media catalog for something to tide you over until Pollux and Leo are once again available... especially if you're one of those readers who likes to collect all the different editions of an author's work for your shelves!.

Support The Literary Mercenary

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

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- The A.L.I.C.E. Files (an audio drama channel I launched with Alice Liddell)

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 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 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.

When You Should (And Shouldn't) Sexualize Characters In Your Stories

There is a particularly distasteful trend that I've seen time and time again in books, and it seems to show up particularly in thrillers and mysteries, though no genre is truly safe from it. And while this isn't solely a male author problem, my fellow men are largely the ones I see doing this time and time again.

What is it, you ask? Sexualizing the descriptions of characters (and particularly femme characters) when that is not the point of the scene, and it often goes completely counter to the impression you want your reader to have of what's going on. It's the equivalent of watching a thriller, seeing an interrogation start in a dimly-lit police station, and instead of the tense soundtrack you'd expect to hear, cheesy funk from a porn movie starts playing.

It undercuts the story you're trying to tell, is what I'm saying.

Seriously, guys... you need to paint the right picture with the proper colors, here.

But before I get into the meat of today's post, remember, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

What Perspective Are You Showing Us?

Full disclaimer here, I am in no way against sexy, spicy content in stories. I got my start on the current leg of my career writing romance and erotica, after all. However, it's important that you use the right tool for the right job, and that the words you're putting on the page are done so with specific intent.

And this isn't just Men Writing Women... but a particular subset where anything involving femme characters is inherently sexual, and that is always front-loaded in a way that undermines the surrounding story.

As an example of what I'm talking about, femme fatales are a staple of the mystery genre. Whether it's the beautiful client who walks into the private eye's office one hip at a time before trying to wrap him around her finger, or the stunning Hollywood widow who clings to our detective in a way that feels more amorous than scared, we see that sort of thing in a lot of stories. However, the role of the seduction in these stories is often a double-edged sword, meant to cloud the investigator's judgment, and to make the reader second-guess what's happening. Are these women actually interested in him, or are they trying to manipulate him? Or is it some combination of both? How can we know where the truth ends, and performance begins?

However, there are stories in this genre where every time a femme character is described, it's done so with rigorous attention to her body, and the thoughts of the male character (or sometimes just the narrator) being projected onto her. Now, perhaps this is being done to show the inner workings of a character's mind, but when this particular method of description doesn't have a greater purpose in the story, it feels exploitative. Perhaps the most egregious example of this is when we get a Tolkien-esque description of a woman's body that just goes on and on, only for us to find out she's dead, and these are the thoughts of the investigator looking at her corpse.

This sounds like an obvious no-no, but it's cropped up more than once in published novels I've held in my own hands. Because unless you're revealing that the character observing the corpse is a closet necrophiliac who is trying to do his job without letting anyone around him figure out what's going on inside his head, this is just tasteless. The same is true when we have our attention drawn to every waitress, secretary, and passing young woman on the sidewalk, getting a description that focuses only on their physical attributes, and how desirable they are in the eyes of the observer, usually breaking away from the rest of the scene entirely just to let the reader know that if this were a movie, all the background extras would be very attractive.

At best, this is distracting. At worst, it reduces your cast of characters to nothing but a collection of body parts, making it hard for readers to actually grow attached to anyone in the story they're trying to read.

She was getting handsy with me... too handsy... I lost count after seven.

They key to avoiding this is to go more than just skin deep, and to try to paint a portrait of characters we see in a way that really sticks with the reader, and that is more than just a collection of physical features and a list of their current wardrobe. Does this character have a commanding presence, are they soft-spoken, or do they have any physical tics? Do they have an accent, do they move in a way that suggests a background in dance, martial arts, or the military? Are there prominent scars, tattoos, or other things that might give a hint about who they are, and where they've come from? Are they abnormally large, or unusually small?

Most importantly, however, authors should avoid what I'm going to dub Selkie Descriptions. For those not familiar with the myth of the selkie, it's a shapechanging seal that can take on the form of a beautiful woman (there's another version of the myth where she's a swan, as well). When a man sees the selkie discard her animal skin, he steals it, and forces her to marry him. The similarity with dozens of other myths of supernatural creatures who look like beautiful women is this; they're by themselves, minding their own business, and then a man decides that her existing while being attractive is clearly meant as a temptation for him, and everything is in service to their beauty, his desire for it, and nothing else.

None of this is to say you cannot have characters, scenes, or descriptions which are sexy... but they need to be intentionally sexy. You need to decide that this is how you want your readers to experience a particular character, a particular scene, or even a particular piece of dialogue. Not only that, but often there's going to be contrast as we find out more about a character, or see them in other situations. As an example, finding out that the quiet librarian is a stripper on the weekends, and seeing the difference between her onstage persona and who she is in her regular life, should have a contrast in feeling and description, whichever side of her we meet first.

People, and stories, tend to have multiple facets. You can shape and carve them however you want to best tell the story... but consider what you're writing, and the way you're writing it, especially when it comes to the femme characters in your cast. Because no matter how solid your action, or how intriguing your mystery, if it reads like a fan service comic script, your story is going to suffer for it.

You can still do it, if that's the vision you have. Hell, you might even lean into it as a parody, or a spoof of genre conventions. But you need to be doing it on purpose, with both eyes open, rather than just falling back on sexualized descriptions and stereotypes that are just going to be sour notes in your story.

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)

- The A.L.I.C.E. Files (a channel full of short stories, many of which are mine)

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 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.

Foreshadowing: The Magic Trick Of Your Novel

If you've ever been to a magic show, you understand foreshadowing. It's when the magician starts by telling you a story, bringing up subtle music, and signaling for the stage lights to change. It's when the choreography kicks in, and the setup for the trick becomes a whole show. It is all of that flash, the lore, the mystery, and the lead up that makes the trick really land for the audience. Because the magician could just walk out, and perform an act of sleight-of-hand too fast for the viewer's eyes to follow... but it won't be the same without all the smoke and mirrors.

So when you write your book, consider your setup, and the dance you're doing with your readers to set their expectations for when you reach the crescendo of your story... because it will affect how hard your big reveal lands when you pull back the curtain!

Even a simple card trick needs a bit of theater to it.

But before I get into the meat of today's post, remember, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

The Prestige, And Your Plot

For those who have seen the film The Prestige, you've heard the explanation in the introduction about how a great magic trick exists in three parts; The Pledge, The Turn, and The Prestige. The Pledge is where the magician shows you a perfectly normal thing, like a bird, a coin, or a metal ring, letting you see that it is completely normal. The Turn is when something seemingly impossible happens; the bird disappears, the solid metal rings connect with one another, or a particular card vanishes from the deck. Last is the Prestige, which is where the magician reveals the final trick; they find your card, the assistant that seemed to be in pieces is whole again, and so on.

Planting the seeds of foreshadowing can be thought of in the same way.

Magic often happens in the margins.

The Pledge is when you initially start planting your seeds in the story. Maybe you're looking to show your hero is going to fall, and become a villain in a future arc, so you show them having an emotional outburst, talking about a secret, or something that shows they have the capacity to be terrible or brutal. The Turn is when we see the foreshadowing begin to manifest in a material way. A concrete step down the path toward the payoff. There may be several Turns in your foreshadowing. The Prestige is when the final reveal happens, and the foreshadowing is completely paid off.

Consider one of the more obvious pieces of foreshadowing from pop culture; the fall of Anakin Skywalker. We see him as a child, being told by the overarching villain that he looks forward to seeing what will come from Anakin in the future. We see him grow, train as a jedi, and become a warrior, a general, and a hero. But we also catch glimpses of the terrible violence inside of him, the darkness, the hate, and the fear. We see him make a deal with the devil as he turns to Palpatine. In the end we see him fight Obi-Wan, lose, and nearly die, before he is resurrected as the cybernetic Darth Vader, and the foreshadowing of that arc is paid in full.

Alternatively, you could take an even bigger view of the setting for another foreshadowing; the idea of bringing Balance To The Force. The Pledge is when we are told Anakin will do this. The Turn is that when he falls to the Dark Side, he seems to have proven the prophecy false. Then after Luke's story, we see that it was through Anakin's bloodline (if not through his person) that balance was found. Prophetic plots are often a good source of foreshadowing.

Foreshadowing isn't just for clever navel-gazing novels, you know.

 

And if you're someone who wonders why foreshadowing is even necessary in a book, well, consider books that suffer from Scooby-Doo Syndrome.

Even if you've never seen me use this phrase before, you know what I'm talking about. If you watch classic episodes of the Scooby-Doo cartoon, many times it turns out the person behind the mask is a character we've never seen in the episode, haven't heard mentioned, and there's no way we could have deduced who person was going to be under the sheet, the clown makeup, or whatever costume they were wearing. There were no clues for the audience to follow, and there was no foreshadowing about who the person was... so when it came time for the big reveal it was impossible to predict, because it felt like the writers just randomly pulled someone out of their back pocket as the villain.

That is what happens when a story lacks foreshadowing. Resolutions can feel jarring, character actions can seem like they came out of nowhere, and it can feel like the story just took abrupt twists and turns with no warning or explanation. Foreshadowing can be subtle, or it can be decidedly unsubtle, whichever suits your story. For an example of the latter, if you watch the film Automaton Transfusion one of our leads says of the jerk he deals with at school, "I'd just like to ram a chainsaw in his face," which happens by the end of the third act.

Just remember that good foreshadowing is like a good magic trick. It engages, it captivates, and the timing is everything.

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)

- The A.L.I.C.E. Files (a channel full of short stories, many of which are mine)

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!

Can You Spot The Clues In "The A.L.I.C.E. Files"? (What Are Your Theories?)

As most regular readers know, for the past several months I've been working with Alice Liddell on a new YouTube channel that we launched called The A.L.I.C.E. Files. While I give more details in older posts like The A.L.I.C.E. Files Is Launching Soon (A Sci Fi Reimagining of Alice in Wonderland on YouTube), the general gist is that it's an ongoing audio drama with two separate stories going on. The first are the files themselves, which are narrated pieces of stand-alone fiction taken from the archives of the mysterious Carroll Institute, and which can be enjoyed on their own like any other fiction anthology. The other story, though, follows "Alice" and her position within the Carroll Institute as she meets her coworkers, learns things about this bizarre place she now works at, and realizes she is in the center of a far bigger web than she ever anticipated.

 

However, with the 7th episode Hearts and Tarts dropping, we're putting a little more gas into the show, and revving up the mystery elements with some actual clues in the videos and scripts themselves for viewers to really sink their teeth into so you can all delve deeper into the story as it unfolds, while coming up with your own theories about what's going on in this truly bizarre place!

 

And the deeper you go, the more there is to explore!

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!

Is This A Budding ARG?

An ARG, or Alternate Reality Game, is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a jumping off point, and which employs transmedia technologies to tell its story. That all sounds pretty technical, but if you've ever been over to the YouTube channel Game Theory, you've come across several examples of this. Suffice to say, this is a fancy term for when creators set up a mystery for people watching their show, reading their book, playing their game, etc. to solve that extends beyond the actual piece of media itself. It's when you end up playing a video game, finding a clue that makes no sense in the game itself, but then you follow that clue to a private YouTube channel, it gives you a video, and in the video there are other clues for you to follow, deepening the mystery as it stretches across platforms.

 

Full disclosure, we aren't going quite that big with The A.L.I.C.E. Files (at this point, anyway). However, there have been subtle clues going back to the trailer about some of what's been building in the background... it's in Hearts and Tarts, though, that we decided to open the door and really invite people to put their theorizing caps on, though.

 

Without giving anything away, I wanted to invite folks who enjoy these kinds of games to at the very least check out this episode, but it will make more sense if you go back to the beginning of the series and start with The A.L.I.C.E. Files Trailer, working your way forward. Though the one clue I will give you is that the files Alice has witnessed so far are not clues, in and of themselves. However, the information mentioned in the dossiers and write-ups that she mentioned may contain some references, Easter eggs, and possible starting points for building your own theories.

So, if this is the kind of thing you enjoy digging into, consider sharing what you think is a clue, and what you think they all mean, in the comment sections of our videos! We're hoping to get our community invested in figuring out exactly what's happening, and what is waiting for Alice in her uncertain future... especially now that she's had contact with [REDACTED]!

 

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)

- The A.L.I.C.E. Files (an audio drama channel I launched with Alice Liddell)

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 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.