My Titles Evolve Over Time

For the fantasy romance novels set in ancient Egypt, I'm quite basic. Everything is "of the Nile." I figured that would cue people as to the time and place. It was also my homage to the 1950's movie "Princess of the Nile," which is a B movie favorite of mine. So I have Priestess, Warrior, Dancer, Magic and Ghost. Of The Nile. There' s also the novella Healer of the Nile, in a boxed set at the moment but soon to come out as a standalone. This year I plan to write the sequel to Dancer and I'm pondering the title. Return of the Dancer of the Nile is perhaps a bit unwieldy.

My subtitle for the series, chosen by Carina Press back in 2011, is Gods of  Egypt. You may be familiar with the fact that a certain movie has recently come out with the same title? Nope, not based on my books!

So, easy peasy so far.

For the science fiction romance, I tend to start out by thinking of the book in terms of the planet's name. So the early working files are entitled "Zulaire" or "Majumdar". Unless the action takes place on a ship and then it'll be known as something like "Plague Ship". I have one that started out as "Saqqarrain" and still is that on my computer. The manuscript has gone through quite a few iterations and will be released in May as Lady of the Star Wind. And no location in the book anywhere has the long and unwieldy name Saqqarrain any more.

When I began writing science fiction in junor high school, I wasn't very keyed into the title as another tool for selling the book, so I think that''s probably why my titles are utilitarian.

Let's see - Wreck of the Nebula Dream. OK, pretty descriptive and easy to pronounce. Probably ok. Escape from Zulaire. Is that clearly science fiction, set on another planet? Or does it sound like my characters are somewhere in Africa? Without spaceships? Mission to Mahjundar. Again, doesn't signal space adventure and going by the title alone, could just as easily be eastern Asia, minus the blasters and starships.  Probably not good.

I also thought of my novels as standalone stories in a connected series, set in the same universe. They are all subtitled A Sectors SF Romance, which helps a little. The Sectors is my interstellar civilization, the backdrop against which all the action occurs.

So for my next book, I went with Star Cruise: Marooned. And the direct sequel to that is going to be Star Cruise: Outbreak. Future books in this series, which will all occur on an interstellar cruise ship, with be Star Cruise: Something. Look for it at an ebook retailer near you!

Like everything else to do with the publishing business, titles have evolved too. I promise the one thing you'll never see from me is a book title with hashtag hashtag hashtag key words in the title itself!

Ghost of the Nile is on sale at Amazon, by the way, only $.99!

The story:

Betrayed, murdered, and buried without proper ceremony, Egyptian warrior Periseneb is doomed to roam the gray deserts of the dead as a ghost for all eternity.

But then the goddess of truth offers him a bargain: return to the world of the living as her champion for 30 days. If he completes his mission, he’ll be guaranteed entry into Paradise. Periseneb agrees to the bargain but, when he returns to the living world, two hundred years have passed and nothing is quite as he expected.

Neithamun is a woman fighting to hang onto her family’s estate against an unscrupulous nobleman who desires the land as well as the lady. All seems lost until a mysterious yet appealing ex-soldier, Periseneb, appears out of nowhere to help her fight off the noble’s repeated attacks.

Meanwhile, Periseneb’s thirty days are rushing by, and he’s powerless against the growing attraction between himself and Neithamun. But their love can never be. For his Fate is to return to the Afterlife, and Death cannot wed with Life…

Dialogue The Essential Ingredient

One of my favorite old films is the 1951 version of “The Thing From Another World,” which was most likely directed by the famous Howard Hawks, even though Christian Nyby is the credited director. One aspect of the film I enjoy most is the crisp, natural sounding dialogue. Here’s what the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) says regarding Hawks and dialogue:

Hawks' genius as a director also manifested itself in his direction of his actors, his molding of their line-readings going a long way toward making his films outstanding. The dialog in his films often was delivered at a staccato pace, and characters' lines frequently overlapped, a Hawks trademark. The spontaneous feeling of his films and the naturalness of the interrelationships between characters were enhanced by his habit of encouraging his actors to improvise.

Alan Sorkin (“West Wing,” “The American President,” etc) is the modern master of rapid dialogue, although Late Night with Seth Meyers once did a great skit skewering his tropes. Hey, we all have tropes, right?

Now Hawks and Sorkin dealt with performed dialogue in movies and TV, whereas I’m writing words on the page that the reader will have to ‘hear’ my characters speak. Luckily my editors taught me early to write the way we’d like to talk, without all the hesitations, ums, likes, repetitions, etc.

The dialog for my science fiction is different than the dialog for my ancient Egyptian fantasy romances. I don’t, as a rule, try to mimic the way the Egyptians actually spoke, partly because I’ve never been in 1550 BCE Egypt, so I’ve never heard the cadences. I try for dialogue that gives the impression of another time and a different set of ground rules, however.  Here’s a short snippet of dialog from Ghost of the Nile, between a warrior and the goddess Ma’at:

          “Excellent, my warrior, you’ve wasted no time. I see you understand the situation to some extent, even though the entire scroll of problems has yet to reveal itself to you. What assistance do you require from me?”

            He swallowed hard and shifted into parade rest stance, relying on his military discipline to handle the shock of a goddess coming at his request. “I remember a pond here, fed by a cold spring from deep within the ground, my lady. I would see the spring restored, enabling the people of my ancestral home to irrigate the fields and water the beasts more easily while I work to solve the issues.”

            Eyebrows raised, Ma’at gazed at her surroundings. “I’m hardly a goddess of the Nile or of water. You might need help from my sister Anuket or the Crocodile God Sobek himself perhaps.”

            Wondering what sort of help Ma’at had anticipated he’d ask for during this assignment, he said, “I wasn’t aware the Great One Sobek concerns himself with any water but the Nile. We’ve no special ties to him in this province, unfortunately. A small temple in the city, but nothing of note.”

And here’s a snippet from my latest scifi, Star Cruise: Marooned. The conversation is between the heroine, a cruise ship staffer, and the hero, an ex-Special Forces operator:

          “We’re marooned now, so there is no crew versus passenger,” she said. “All consumables are

share and share alike at my discretion.”

            “All right then, as long as no one is docking my pay.” He took the mug with a laugh. “I’ve missed the real stuff since I left the Teams. Special Forces gets their own allotment. Too pricey to drink much in my new civilian life.”

            She acknowledged the shared joke from yesterday with a raised eyebrow, and sipped her coffee, but refused to be distracted. “Talk to me. Why are you urging me to move these people somewhere else? And where would we go?”

            He leaned against the counter. “We can assume whatever reason the TDJ captain had for leaving was compelling.”

            She nodded.

            “And no sign of Drewson returning.” He sipped the hot drink. “The two facts together suggest to me our ship is gone.”

            “Gone? You mean jumped into hyperspace?”

            “Could be.” He paused. Meg thought he seemed to be struggling with some inner decision whether to share more of his concerns, so she waited. After a moment, Red said, “The Far Horizon could have been destroyed by hostiles.”

            “An enemy incursion in this Sector?” Meg blinked, trying to assimilate the concept. “Last time I heard any news, the Mawreg were at least two Sectors away, and being pushed back all along the front.”

            “I don’t have any current intel, been out of the Teams too long, but the government never tells civilians the full story about anything.” He shook his head. “The fact that the rangers were pulled out of here says a lot to me….”

Some of the most fun I’ve ever had was listening to the two talented actors who narrated the audiobook version of Escape from Zulaire, reading scenes where the two characters they were ‘playing’ had conversation. It was nearly as good as watching a movie of the book, the way they took my words off the pages and interacted.

Dialogue – the essential ingredient, appropriately tuned for the story you’re trying to tell!

OK, here's the Late Night Sorkin skit:

Local Conference Events

This is going to be my shortest entry ever, I think, because until recently my day job and general life precluded me from doing much traveling. Unless we want to count NASA conferences, which isn't the topic for this blog today.

I can only mention two local cons. The first would be California Deamin' Writers' Conference, which had its second occurrence this past March. Although I haven't actually been to this one (this year my daughter's wedding conflicted with it), I heard all kinds of raves from my local SoCal author friends. I'm hoping to get there next year because it's so great to have a local event. It runs for three days, with workshops and panels. This year Sylvia Day was one of the keynote speakers.

The other con would only be local for me if I was still living in Huntsville, AL or if I could manage to go visit my family in the area at the right time!It's the Heart of Dixie RWA Chapter's annual Reader's Luncheon (this year also featuring Sylvia Day!). A one day only event, I've always thought it sounded like tons of fun.

So there you have it!

I did have a new release this week - Ghost of the Nile, so if you'll indulge me (because I'm still excited about it), here's the blurb for the new book:

1550 BCE

Betrayed, murdered, and buried without proper ceremony, Egyptian warrior Periseneb is doomed to roam the gray deserts of the dead as a ghost for all eternity.

But then the goddess of truth offers him a bargain: return to the world of the living as her champion for 30 days. If he completes his mission, he’ll be guaranteed entry into Paradise. Periseneb agrees to the bargain but, when he returns to the living world, two hundred years have passed and nothing is quite as he expected.

Neithamun is a woman fighting to hang onto her family’s estate against an unscrupulous nobleman who desires the land as well as the lady. All seems lost until a mysterious yet appealing ex-soldier, Periseneb, appears out of nowhere to help her fight off the noble’s repeated attacks.

Meanwhile, Periseneb’s thirty days are rushing by, and he’s powerless against the growing attraction between himself and Neithamun. But their love can never be. For his Fate is to return to the Afterlife, and Death cannot wed with Life…

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Book Release: Veronica Scott's Ghost of the Nile

Got gods? How about meddling Egyptian Gods? Love a tortured hero out of time (in every way imaginable)?  Our beloved Saturday Whore, Veronica Scott offers up her latest installment in the Gods of Egypt historical romance series.

GHOST OF THE NILE
Gods of Egypt Series

1550 BCE

Betrayed, murdered, and buried without proper ceremony, Egyptian warrior Periseneb is doomed to roam the gray deserts of the dead as a ghost for all eternity.

But then the goddess of truth offers him a bargain: return to the world of the living as her champion for 30 days. If he completes his mission, he’ll be guaranteed entry into Paradise. Periseneb agrees to the bargain but, when he returns to the living world, two hundred years have passed and nothing is quite as he expected.

Neithamun is a woman fighting to hang onto her family’s estate against an unscrupulous nobleman who desires the land as well as the lady. All seems lost until a mysterious yet appealing ex-soldier, Periseneb, appears out of nowhere to help her fight off the noble’s repeated attacks.

Meanwhile, Periseneb’s thirty days are rushing by, and he’s powerless against the growing attraction between himself and Neithamun. But their love can never be. For his Fate is to return to the Afterlife, and Death cannot wed with Life…

Buy It Now & Leave A Review:

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Inner Conflict in Ghost of the Nile

For the post this week, I decided to tackle the questions fellow Word Whore Linda presented in her excellent post on Wednesday. I applied them to the hero in my latest WIP, Ghost of the Nile, the first draft of which I’m happy to say I finished this week. I LOVE being a fulltime writer now! ( Off-topic: Here was my post on that recent change in my life: Living the Dream)

So here were Linda’s probing questions, my answers and a tiny hint of Chapter One from the WIP:

1.) What is privately at stake for your antagonist and how can you use that to force him into the fray? The hero of my story is Periseneb, an ancient Egyptian warrior who was murdered and never received the proper burial, nor was the Book of the Dead recited for him. Consequently, his heart will never be judged by the gods in their golden scale, and he can never enter the Afterlife. He’s been condemned to endlessly wander the gray wastes, fighting demons and other perils. The goddess Ma’at offers him a chance to win entry into the Afterlife, if he’ll serve as her champion in the battle against an enemy deity and its human agents. She’s surprisingly vague on the details of what he will face and must accomplish.  Of course there’s a catch – if he doesn’t satisfy the goddess with his efforts, he’ll be returned to the gray wastes forever. No second chances.

“What do you need done?”

            Smiling she said, “I need you to complete your interrupted journey home.”

            Disappointed, since he’d been thinking of battles with demons perhaps, he said, “That’s all? Just show up 200 years late and say, here I am? Who would know me now? Who would care? I have no place there, Great One.” His voice cracked just a little on the last sentence and he clamped his lips closed, taking a deep breath. Thinking about the dreams he’d had, simple as they were, hurt like a knife to the heart. All gone, turned to dust.

            Leaving the chair, she walked to him and the scent of her blue lotus perfume was calming. “Complete the journey and act as your heart dictates.” She tapped his chest with her index finger and he felt his heart thump loudly. “Do what you feel best represents truth. What represents me. I request no more and will accept no less.”

2.) What is it that your hero is in the position to learn that would make a difference to or effect only his or her own life? For good or bad?

Periseneb really wants to find out who murdered him and exact some kind of justice, even though he now knows it’s been 200 years or so since he died.

3.) What has he or she already sacrificed to keep the peace or be happy in their personal life in your story? How do they feel about it and how does that increase the internal conflict for your viewpoint character(s)?

I can only answer the third question in the context of my novel. As Periseneb steps back onto his home territory, he finds it increasingly difficult to maintain his emotional distance from the current occupants of the Heron Marsh estate, especially the Lady Neithamun. Things he discovers about those who lived on the estate in his time, as well as the facts about his murder, shock him.

And, he’s an akh, a ghost given human form by the goddess. Ghosts were much dreaded in ancient Egypt, believed to have dark powers. He has to keep the secret of who and what he is, while attempting to discern exactly what the Great One Ma’at wants him to accomplish. He’s deeply conflicted about being among unsuspecting humans as a despised ghost, even with the promise of the Afterlife within his grasp.

So, that’s my post on inner conflict for this week and a BIG thank you to Author Linda!

(Ghost of the Nile is in the editing process and will hopefully be released toward the end of April this year.)