A Monster Character Who Took An Even Larger Role

As I understand it, this week’s topic is about characters getting away from us when we’re writing. Um, mine don’t do that. Sometimes a secondary character may become more important than I had originally expected, or readers will ask for one to be the subject of their own sequel.

I did have a monster who became even more of a monster. In Mission to Mahjundar, the characters end up as prisoners of a bloodthirsty civilization who worship a terrifying god known as Tlazomiccuhtli. No spoilers but in the original draft, there were some mild unpleasantries between a couple of the main characters and this god inside the temple, but he/it never actually materialized to threaten them. He allowed his priest/warriors to do all the evil deeds. Ah, but in the final version, as it turns out, there’s a very tense standoff between him and Shalira, the heroine:

Shalira felt a cold breeze on the back of her neck. Next moment she had the sensation someone whispered her name. She glanced at Mike, but he remained unconscious. Half turning, she scanned the cave stretching behind her, wondering if there was an exit. Not that they could leave, with the drone on its way to them, but neither did she want to be surprised by an attack from the rear.

Blinking, she realized her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her - there was a glow in the gloomy recesses of the cave. Rising to her feet, she crept cautiously toward the light. Behind her she heard Johnny say something but her ears were full of the whispering she’d heard before, in the chamber with the giant statue of  Tlazomiccuhtli. Goosebumps made her skin crawl as she came around the last rocky outcrop and confronted another effigy of the Nathlemeru deity. The voice in her head grew louder, and there was harsh, triumphant laughter.

Closing her eyes, the only defense she knew, she tried to back away but felt as if she was standing in glue. She caught her balance with an effort as she tripped over loose stones.

You are mine, little oracle. And I will have the heart of your warrior, as I was promised by Ishtananga before he died. And I’ll loose the cherindors in your family’s precious scepter on all who oppose me.

“No!” She screamed her protest out loud. Blinking, she stared at the statue, which was about eight feet tall, semidetached from the cave wall. The sculptor had made this representation of Tlazomiccuhtli somewhat less graphic than the one in the main temple in the plateau above but the effect remained horrific. She saw bleached human bones lying on the ground around the statue. Apparently the Nathlemeru conducted sacrifices here on occasion as well. Bad luck had drawn them into another place of its influence over humans. Voice trembling, she tried to deny the reality.  “You have no power over us.”

But I do. Your goddess owes me. And through his fears, one of your companions has given me mastery over him. Watch.

She heard Everett yelling and next moment Johnny came walking past her, blaster in his hand but aimed at the cave floor. His face was slack, as if he was asleep. He stumbled over the cave floor, dropping the outworld weapon. As he headed toward the statue, one hand fumbled with his belt knife. Horrified, unsure if Tlazomiccuhtli was going to try to make the soldier kill himself or her, or even Mike, helplessly comatose in the cave entry, Shalira grabbed the sergeant’s arm as he shuffled past.

“Johnny, you have to fight this off,” she hissed.

He stopped walking but the moment she moved her hand away, he lifted one foot to take the next step. Wondering where Everett was and why he didn’t come to investigate, she snagged the back of Johnny’s shirt and he paused again.

Red snakes of light had materialized from thin air and were writhing around the statue of  Tlazomiccuhtli, becoming more and more solid, developing eyes and mouths. She wished she could close her eyes again rather than look at them but was afraid of what might happen if she cowered like a child.

“My goddess owes you nothing, and neither do I,” she said. “You have no power over me.”

Wait until you’re in the grip of my servants, wait until I touch you myself and then tell me I have no power. Perhaps I’ll make you sacrifice your warrior to me yourself. How much you humans have forgotten in the millennia since the world began.

If you’d like to know what happens next, or what leads up to this moment, the SFR Galaxy Award Winning novel is available here:

Amazon     Barnes & Noble   iTunes     All Romance eBooks     KOBO     Google Play

The audiobook was just released this past week and here’s an audioclip, narrated by the wonderful Michael Riffle, although the scene is from earlier in the book, not from the Tlazomiccuhtli encounter:

Gotta Have Audiobooks!

I'm an enthusiastic proponent of audiobooks, because I know there are readers out there who want to listen to good stories in their car, in the shower, while doing housework, jogging, walking, crocheting...pretty much anytime! Some people will read the book on the kindle, switch to the audiobook while commuting and return to the kindle version in the evening. It’s a rapidly growing audience and I want my novels to be available for anyone who wants to hear them. I’ve even presented workshops on the subject to other authors who were interested in the process.

Vicky Hensley of the Audiogals website says audiobook listeners are "double taskers" who want a "seamless listen." In her learned opinion, the narrator or voice actor is the key to enjoyment of an audiobook.

Four of my books are also available as audiobooks. The first two, Priestess of the Nile  and Warrior of the Nile, were picked up from  Carina Press by Audible and I had utterly no involvement in the process and no connection with the person who recorded them. No fun!

When I began independently self-publishing my science fiction romance novels in 2012, I knew I wanted audiobook versions as well. Working through ACX (an Amazon company) I was extremely blessed to find a wonderful actor to bring my books to life. Michael Riffle has now narrated two of my scifi novels and is in the middle of recording a third. There’s nothing like hearing my characters the way Michael embodies them. I knew he was the right person to play the hero from the first words he spoke during the audition for Wreck of the Nebula Dream.

I did a series of blog posts about the process of creating an audiobook and here’s a snippet of what Michael had to say regarding his preparation for bringing the various characters to life:

Michael: I think the biggest influence on what I try to do with my voice comes from your description of the characters.  Not just how their voice is described, but how they hold themselves, what sort of personality do they have, how they are feeling during the whole process.  I try to equate each character to someone I know, or a character I’ve seen in a movie or television, something to ground it in reality.  I might be a little selfish by giving my own voice to Nick.  It’s hard to NOT want to be the modest, able-bodied hero who gets the girl.

To read more details about how the process went from beginning to end, here is the link:

Interviewwith Michael Riffle Audio Book Narrator WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM

 For the second book we did together, Escape From Zulaire, I had the heroine narrated by Mary

Fegreus, another extremely talented actress, while Michael did the rest of the book. I interviewed them about doing the recording for USA Today Happily Ever After.

Here’s what they had to say about the steamy scenes:

Since this is a science-fiction romance, there were some intense and even steamy moments between the characters of Andi and Tom. Did those scenes present any particular challenge?

Michael: I don't know if it's because Mary and I have a very comfortable relationship or if it's because we recorded our parts separately, but I didn't find any of the romantic or intense parts challenging. From a directing standpoint, there was a little bit of challenge in the romantic scene because Mary wasn't entirely comfortable with the intimacy.

Veronica: I know they always say the steamy scenes in the movies or TV are among the hardest to do, because there'll be all the crew members watching and the elaborate choreography of the action. I imagine this must have been a bit similar, as far as comfort levels.

Mary: Mike's being nice about it. Full disclosure: I did a lot of kicking and screaming during Chapter 6, and I may have had a bottle of soju in the recording booth with me. The outtakes from that scene are pretty funny. That's been my experience as an actress with all romantic scenes. The moments that are the steamiest in the final product tend to be the silliest behind the scenes.

The rest of the USAT/HEA interview with Mary and Michael is here.

In closing, if I could afford it, I’d have Michael narrate all my books just for me while they were still Works In Progress, because it’s such a pleasure to collaborate with him. Hearing how he interprets the dialog and embodies the characters always gives me fresh insights and ideas. I’m definitely going to continue having him record the final versions of the novels so there are audiobooks for the listeners out there!

Questions for Readers About Audiobooks + Giveaway

My fellow Word Whores have all asked a lot of excellent questions of you, the Readers, over the past week. Thanks for all the answers!While trying to figure out what was left to ask, I decided to go in a slightly different direction and ask you about (drum roll please!) - AUDIOBOOKS!

I'll give a copy of my award winning Science Fiction Adventure novel WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM to one randomly selected commenter today, in honor of the topic. (AudioFile Magazine raved about the acting skills of my wonderful narrator, Michael Riffle, as he brought this story to life BTW.)

Do you listen to audiobooks?
How many would you estimate you've listened to in the past year?
Do you like to have the book or ebook and the audiobook version?
When or where do you listen to audiobooks?

And that's it for me but I would very much appreciate any insights you'd like to provide because I'm really committed to having audiobooks available.

New Word Whore Checks In - Introduction & Self Publishing

Hi! No you’re in the right place even though this is Veronica Scott signing in! I’m your new Word Whore and happy to be here…

Only the fact that my co-workers would not have understood kept me from squeeing up and down the day job’s halls late last week when the Word Whores    e mailed to tell me I was now one of them. I’ll be holding down the Saturday slot, wrestling weekly with the knotty questions this group ponders.  (On my personal blog I have a tendency to talk about Titanic, Ancient Egypt, vintage chandelier earrings, LEGOs,  old science fiction movies, gladiators, Mars rovers….in short, anything but writing and so it’ll be fun to talk about the craft here.)

In addition to the day job, I write science fiction romance and paranormal romance – two genres I also love reading, not-so-coincidentally. More on that in a minute! I’ve been writing since I was a little kid...the library in our house was equally full of science fiction books (Dad’s influence) and tomes on ancient history (I think Mom wanted to be an archaeologist) so it’s no wonder I write novels that blend aspects of the two. The first movie I ever remember seeing (other than “Bambi”, long traumatic story there) was “Forbidden Planet,” on television, with Leslie Nielsen in his serious heroic acting days. So science fiction imprinted itself on me very young!

I have two grown daughters and a wonderful grandson - I’ve made sure all three share my love of SF and ancient history. I am supervised by two cats (not as fluffy as Jeffe Kennedy’s Jackson, but who is, I ask you?)….pictures of them will no doubt appear here from time to time.

Priestess of the Nile was my first published work, in January 2012 from Carina Press. I was still basking in the excitement when it dawned on me that the 100^th anniversary of the Titanic sinking was fast approaching. This was significant because I also had a completed science fiction novel loosely based on the Titanic disaster, but set in the far future on a spaceliner.  There was no time to submit it anywhere, not with the 2012 anniversary being only three months away at the time.

And so I fell into self publishing, which is the Word Whores topic for this week. I actually enjoyed the self publishing process. It was nice to be in total control of my book, Wreck of the Nebula Dream, but also a bit scary. I worked with a free lance editor – my first piece of advice is you must have an editor. You’ll never catch all the issues in your beloved manuscript on your own. I commissioned a professionally done cover –  my second piece of advice is you need a kick ass cover (am I allowed to say kick ass here???Guess so LOL!).

I found it mildly stressful to be in charge of all the technical aspects of getting the book properly formatted for the kindle and Nook, and uploaded. (I’ve been told I still have some backward quotation marks in the ebooks – sorry!)  Getting formal reviews has been something of a challenge since many book bloggers and reviewers don’t welcome self published books. I think that’s the place I most wished I had a publisher standing behind me, but there were tradeoffs involved with going independent and I really wanted to tie in to that 100^th anniversary and all the attention and interest in Titanic. (And the book was picked as a 2013 SFR Galaxy Award winner, if I may sneak that fact in.)

I then took the next step in self publishing and had an audio book released. Now that process was all kinds of fun. I loved collaborating with the talented actor Michael Riffle who narrated and produced the book for me. He embodied my hero so perfectly, and portrayed the other characters with elan – it was a personal joy to hear each new chapter as he finished recording. Next best thing to having the book made into a movie! I’ve talked extensively about the audiobook process on my blog, starting with a fun interview with Michael, so I won’t go into it here.

 

Will I self publish again? Most likely at some point. It was overall a good experience. Let me hasten to add, I’m thrilled to have my Ancient Egyptian paranormal romance series published by Carina Press, really enjoy working with everyone there. (The next one is Warrior of the Nile, coming in September 2013.) But I can definitely see myself going the self pub route again under the right circumstances, as I did with Wreck of the Nebula Dream.  Never say never!

Future posts will be shorter, I promise! Had to do double duty today what with introducing myself AND addressing the weekly question….

Any questions for the newest Whore?