The Heroine’s Journey

I think many people are familiar with the idea of “The Hero’s Journey” (by Joseph Campbell), but what about “The Heroine’s Journey”?

If I ever heard of it, I assumed the phrase simply meant the Hero’s Journey applied equally well to women.

Maureen Murdock, a student of Campbell, came to believe it did not. She developed a model of a heroine’s journey based on her work with women in therapy. But when she showed it to Campbell in 1983, he reportedly dismissed the idea, telling her:

“Women don’t need to make the journey. In the whole mythological journey, the woman is there. All she has to do is realize that she’s the place that people are trying to get to.”

How passive is that, eh?

Yeah, I agree with Murdock, not Campbell, but it was only from Sacha Black, on The Rebel Podcast episode in which she interviewed Gail Carriger on The Heroine’s Journey that my eyes were opened. So Murdock in the 90s wrote her book, for people to use as a model for their own behaviour, to improve their own lives.

Carriger is the author of The Parasol Protectorate series, starting with Soulless, a whimsical steampunkish paranormal romance thriller. (I love the whole series.)

Most of what I know about this topic I learned from listening to the Gail Carriger interview, who has just published her first (and she quips, hopefully her only) non-fiction book, The Heroine’s Journey. She said she’d been waiting for someone else to write about The Heroine’s Journey for fiction writers, but eventually realised if she didn’t write it, no one might, so she rolled up her sleeves and set to work. Also, because Murdock’s book was from a Jungian Archetype standpoint, that concerned Carriger because she felt such analysis often conflates biological sex and gender, whereas the two journey types are really genderless.

In the interview, they start discussing the topic at around the 24 minute mark. It’s worth listening to. In it, Carriger explains that in The Heroine’s Journey, there are big differences in purpose, approach, strength, motivation, and ending.

Key differences:

Carriger says (after warning that what she’s about to say will cause a ‘psychological break’ in people’s minds!), that a heroine’s strength is the ability to ask for help from others. Western culture has real trouble in seeing the ability to ask for help as a strength. But that ability lies at the heart of networking, and making connections.

A heroine’s goal isn’t Power, but Networking, Connection: reuniting with someone taken from her.

A heroine’s motivation is not revenge or to right a wrong, but restoration or connection.

Her approach isn’t to take the offensive, but through communication and information gathering. She’s a builder and a general, self-aware enough to know when to ask for help.

A hero’s end is usually poignant isolation, in power. The heroine’s is usually happy, surrounded by family and friends.

The hero’s power comes from his innate abilities and strengths, but the heroine is strengthened by her network of allies and her connections. I think I’m struggling with this concept too, since I had to remind myself of the truth that one twig is easily broken, but a tightly bound bunch of them is super strong. Or that ‘old boys’ networks’ can form powerful groups. The more you look at it, the more obviously true it is.

Carriger noted that a heroine is weakened by isolation from her network, and that often, a Heroine’s Journey story ends with the restoration of connections.

In her book, she gives pithy but flippant definitions of each type of Journey in the Introduction:

The Hero’s:

Increasingly isolated protagonist stomps around prodding evil with pointy bits, eventually fatally prods baddie, gains glory and honour.

The Heroine’s:

Increasingly networked protagonist strides around with good friends, prodding them and others on to victory, together.

Note: neither Journey is gendered: e.g. Harry Potter is a Heroine’s Journey. Carriger noted that if as an author your heroine is struggling and the plot is stalling it may be because you keep putting the heroine in isolation, cutting her off from her network. That’s what you do in the Hero’s Journey to force him to draw on his core strength, but for the heroine it cuts her off from her core strength. So if this is happening it may be because you’re trying to force your heroine’s story into a Hero’s Journey structure.

Three beats: Descent, Search, Ascent

The Descent (involuntary withdrawal)

1. Broken network (something taken away)

2. Pleas ignored

3. Abdication of Power

4. Family Offers Aid

– Isolation and Danger –

The Search (aided by companions)

5. (Goes into) Disguise, Subversion (Hiding)

6. Surrogate Family

7. Visit to the Underworld

8. Delegation, Networking, Information Gathering

The Ascent (structured reunion)

– The Compromise –

9. Negotiation for Reunification

10. Revenge & Glory Irrelevant

11. Network Established or Rebuilt

Of course, as I listened, I was asking myself “Is Leeth’s journey a Hero’s one, or a Heroine’s?”, and realised (yeah, a bit of an epiphany): it’s both. Individually each book is a Hero’s Journey, but the series as a whole will be a Heroine’s Journey. That feels both correct and good to me. I’m writing the series by the seat of my pants, but this structure flows from Leeth’s deepest motivations: her need to belong and her hunger for acceptance and love. So of course that’s going to play out across the series as a whole.

Further reading

Some good references I found while writing this were Carriger’s book (The Heroine’s Journey: For Writers, Readers,and Fans of Pop Culture or the book description page on her web site), and for writers I think that’s the most helpful reference.

A much shorter look at the topic for storytellers is Why Screenwriters Should Embrace The Heroine’s Journey, aimed especially at screenwriters. It uses the film Wonder Woman as an example of its ten stages of the Heroine’s Journey – with nifty chart.

The wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroine%27s_journey gives a reasonable overview, pointing out Victoria Lynn Schmidt’s version of the heroine’s journey (which is set up as The Heroine Journeys Project, “Exploring and Documenting Life-Affirming Alternatives to the Hero’s Journey”.

Another article good article is Julia Blair’s The Heroine’s Journey: Examples, Archetypes, and Infographic. In it, she notes that the Hero’s Journey is rooted in ancient myths that no longer completely fit the modern world. Her article looks at the topic from several angles, including Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, noting that the heroine typically faces challenges from higher up that pyramid of needs. (Also interesting is that she sees the film Wonder Woman as following the basic shape of the Hero’s Journey, just with a female protagonist. I don’t agree.)

Maureen Murdock breaks her version of the Heroine’s Journey (for self-improvement differently):

1. Separation from the Feminine

2. Identification with the Masculine and Gathering of Allies

3. Road or Trials and Meeting the Ogres and Dragons

4. Experiencing the Boon of Success. (The Hero’s Journey normally ends here.)

5. Heroine Awakens to Feelings of Spiritual Aridity/Death.

6. Initiation and Descent to the Goddess.

7. Heroine Urgently Yearns to Reconnect with the Feminine.

8. Heroine Heals the Mother/Daughter Split.

9. Heroine Heals the Wounded Masculine Within.

10. Heroine Integrates the Masculine and Feminine.

A Novel Ending

A funny thing happened on the way to the ending…

I’m loving my new being-an-author career, despite my inability to earn a living from it. (Yet?)

One of the things I enjoy is that each book feels like it comes with its own unique challenges.  I hope that means I’m learning as I go along.

For the current book in my Leeth Dossier series, Lost Girl (#5), there were two challenges.  The first was my feeling that on the subject of plot, I fly too much by the seat of my pants, so the whole journey from start to end is like a billy-cart racing downhill out of control.  Exhilarating, but also nerve-wracking.

Looking back through my revision control files, I deduce I started writing the Lost Girl segment of the story back in Apr/May 2009.  I wrote a chunk more in Jan 2015 before posting the chapters for review on the Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror over a few months and receiving valuable feedback.  By Oct 2015 it had grown to about 25,000 words.  I think that was when I set it aside to devote all my energy to completing the earlier books in the series.

That took five years.

So, for book #5 I was starting with a broad idea of the story, 25,000 words of draft, and thanks to a discussion with Jon Marshall one night, a good feeling for the theme of the novel.  I also wanted to try a hybrid approach to plotting.

Pantser or Plotter?

I love the organic surprises and creativity that comes from flying by the seat of my pants, but at the same time, having watched his video Misconceptions About Rewriting, and from my own experience in algorithmic development, I deeply understood the value in at least high-level planning.  So I hoped that creating the bones of a plot might work well, since it would only be a sketchy outline and thus pretty painless to change it if the story started going in a different direction.

I started reading John Truby’s “The Anatomy of Story” in early 2019, reaching a quarter of the way through before getting distracted. (I see there’s also a video interview here.)  The book and advice is fine, but it wasn’t sparking any flames for me and I set it aside.  (I do intend to return to it and finish reading it though.)

I’d downloaded a free writing book from Daniel David Wallace titled “How to Write Better Sentences”, and watched some of his videos, and liked them, so when he offered a course on his character-driven plotting course in December 2019 I decided to sign up for it.  I did that diligently from mid Dec 2019 to end of Jan 2020, and was very happy with the outcome.  I had lots of ideas for how the plot would unfold, all of course driven by the characters, which is how I have to write.

The problem that remained was that I only had a satisfying end.  I think you also need the ending to be unpredictable.  I (still) don’t know how you plan that.  For me it’s just happened by luck or inspiration, and I was still in the same position, lacking that final piece of the puzzle.

As I’ve written on several occasions now, I’ve really come to trust Unconscious Thought Theory.  It’s an excellent way to use the full power of your mind and surprise yourself.  So I carried on writing, always with the lightly-plotted ending in mind, and things flowed along pretty well.

Now, because the World Science Fiction Convention was to be held in New Zealand in July/Aug 2020, a place I’d wanted to visit and a convention that seems exciting, I planned to attend.  I booked my travel and accommodation, with the goal of publishing the book late July and maybe even launching it or promoting it in some way at the WorldCon.  To do that I needed to send the MS to Dave at ThEditors.com by E/April.

So I was trying hard to meet a deadline of E/March to have a good 1^st draft of the MS.  I was extremely lucky to be little affected by the unprecedented Australian bushfires of 2019, but no one could remain unmoved by those events - from the heroism of our fireys and communities ( (even this Aussie speculative fiction anthology put together for fire charities: Stories of Hope), to the jaw-dropping failures of our so-called political leader to actually lead.

There was also the ongoing drama of the Democratic run-up toward the 2020 US presidential election, which I had grown addicted to (since the US has an inordinate impact on world affairs, and I could see what a turning point the 2020 election could be, with luck).  Then of course, the global pandemic of Covid-19 arrived, making the insignificance of my own efforts even clearer.  Now, I may not be as stubborn as Leeth, but I am stubborn, so I carried on.

Like the period after the death of my wife Stella in Dec 2014, my writing sustained me and kept me positive. So for that reason as much as any I stuck to my plans.

Which brings me to the part of the story which most surprised me — and in the end delighted me.

How did it go in the end?

Approaching my deadline, I had set myself a (120,000) word count limit to try to hold myself to, to keep the book a manageable size for all concerned.  And as the days fell away and March 31 approached, it looked like I might just do it.  But when the days dropped from three to two to one and I arrived at the cusp of the ending, I’d run out of time and still didn’t know fully what the ending would be.

Partly this was just having confidence in my unconscious to pull a rabbit out of the hat; partly it was the belief that if I didn’t know what the ending would be, it might mean that when (if?) it did arrive it would also surprise a reader; and partly it was having faith in my characters.  I also had an interesting mix of actors there at the ending.  There was the potential to have… (counting…) seven major players in the scene at the end.  Unfortunately that meant there was a huge range of ways the ending could play out.

So I think there was a certain amount of choice-paralysis at work, although it’s also possible my unconscious was simply beavering away at the complex problem I’d set it.  Of course I was also worried I might not be able to pull it off at all.  Would the ending be good enough?  I didn’t want just an exciting one, I wanted it to have emotional depth too.  So the stakes felt high to me.

And still I couldn’t seem to make much progress.  Here’s how the last several days went:

March 29: Had reached the climactic scene — I mean, all the players were on stage together.
March 30: Wrote 3700 words of the scene.
March 31: Day off, visiting Mum.
April 1: (astute readers will see this is after E/Mar) Strangely blocked, until I forced myself to design the physical location. Then: +600 words.
April 2: Wrote 3,600 words and halfway through the “action” part of the ending.
April 3: Finished the “action” part (wrote 1000 words).
April 4: Still didn’t know how it would end. I simply considered each actor and let them do their thing. Various agendas in play, conflicting, and stage fully set and conducive to just letting the movie roll. Each one being clever and true to themselves, a dramatic race to the finish with real challenges and emotional drama. At the very end of the day (11:50pm), I felt delighted. My characters had thrilled me and moved me. I’d been biting my nails more than once, and in tears more than once. 5,100 words and the MS was basically complete.

I’ve never experienced anything like that last day.  My feeling was one of excitement and satisfaction.  I made some small additions while cooking dinner (9pm), and when I sat down with it I realised I didn’t want to watch any TV as I ate, I instead wanted to dwell on those final scenes, to savour and digest it all.  I suppose it felt a bit like I’d just stepped off an emotional roller-coaster!

I still have thirty one small gaps to fill or issues to check, and then lots of work to polish it up enough to be ready to send to my editor, so I can’t really relax much yet.  But the weight on my shoulders of finishing that critical 1^st draft, and perhaps as importantly, writing a ‘good’ ending, is over.  So a lot of unacknowledged stress has fallen away, and I must say I’m looking forward to the next few weeks.

I’ve written this because the experience felt really special, and I wanted to capture it. It was nothing like I’d had for the previous books.  Once again, I feel I learned a lot.  My fingers are crossed in the hope that readers will have the same opinion!

Withdrawing My Books from Kindle Select

This is just a quick post to announce I will be withdrawing my books from KU/KOLL, in response to Amazon's algorithm changes that mean the KU money is largely now being shared by just two classes of people:

1. unscrupulous people who game the system
2. best-selling authors who get millions of pages read per day

My books will still be available for purchase from Amazon, and in print as both A-format and B-format paperbacks. They simply won't be available for free once the Kindle Select renewal periods ends.

For me personally this will drop the royalty payments for the ebooks from 70% to 35%, so I will also be increasing the prices in the next week or so. (I've also been thinking for a long time that I may have been pricing them a little too low.)  This should have a negligible effect on sales, because I am not competing with the scammers to pay for ads, so my books are not being bought.  Very few are even found by people borrowing them (perhaps one or two books per month).

So the ability to borrow my books will end, for each, on the following dates:

Wild Thing - Feb 26, 2019 (The Leeth Dossier #1) (Wild Thing paperback)
Harsh Lessons - Dec 21, 2018 (The Leeth Dossier #2) (Harsh Lessons paperback)
Shadow Hunt - Jan 19 2019 (The Leeth Dossier #3) (Shadow Hunt paperback)

Once my ebooks are no longer exclusive to Kindle Select I'll be able to enrol them in all the other ebook distribution platforms, which do not appear to suffer from the same problems Amazon has engineered for itself.

I doubt I will be returning the books to Kindle Select because I anticipate Amazon will fail to take effective action until the average quality of books available there has fallen noticeably.

For any other authors who wish to withdraw their books, the process is quite simple, as described in the relevant KU help page:

1. In your KDP Bookshelf page, next to the book you wish to withdraw, click on the "..." (ellipsis) button beside the "Promote and Advertise" button.
2. In the menu that pops up, click on the "KDP Select Info" item.
3. On the page that leads you to, clear the tick from the "Automatically renew this book's enrollment in KDP Select for another 90 days" in the panel that pops up. (You might need to click on the Manage KDP Select Enrollment button to get that panel with its check box.)

In happier news, I hope to put the finishing touches to Violent Causes (The Leeth Dossier #4) by mid December (about a week), and launch it a couple of months after that.  I'm pleased with how it has turned out -- with Dave's help (and Jon's) as usual!

Writing, Editing, Creating

I wasn't planning to write a blog article, but felt after yesterday I wanted to make some notes while the recent events were fresh in my mind. I'm not sure what this piece will be about, but I guess it's going to touch on creativity (also see The Creative Process and the Unconscious, Where Ideas Come From) and An update on Creativity and the Unconscious), blocks, editing, and book 4 progress.

Yesterday was one of those wonderful writing days that sometimes happen, so this is partly about what led up to that.

I haven't written any articles for a while because I feel I'm way behind schedule on where I wanted to be for this fourth book. I had felt pretty comfortable that I could have it ready about mid-2018, but that turned out to be wildly optimistic. I'll lay out the reasons why, and let you see what you think of them.

I think I started writing the MS in 1991, and completed that 1^st draft near the end of 1993. I just realised that might be a fun image to share… here's a photo of the MS.

I used mostly used sheets of paper that had been printed. In fact, on the left you can find a draft of a page from my wife Stella's PhD thesis on the Percy Folio.

In my first draft of the start of Leeth's story, it opened on the scene where Dr Harmon is in the office of the Mother Superior of the orphanage, looking for a suitable subject to adopt.

Anyway, the MS went through many stages — the next one being typing it up on the computer, in the troff/MM markup. I worked on it and polished and edited it, sending it off to little or no response to publishers, and then about ten years later realised the whole second half was full of story — but no plot. So I bit the bullet and cut it in half. Then it seemed a little short, and I still felt it was lacking something. The Godsson-Disten idea came from somewhere to fill the gap, and I developed that and wove it in to the story. At the end, the MS was back to its original, pre-halved size.

I still kept editing and polishing, improving my craft. I fed that whole MS, chapter by chapter, through the Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror, and learned so much from the many very helpful reviews I received, and equally, from writing reviews of other writers' submissions there.

Learning your craft by writing a long novel is a hard way to do it — you need to fix stylistic errors through a much larger mass than a short story — but I rarely enjoy reading or writing short fiction. So I kept at it.

The point of this historical digression is to explain the first couple of special problems I faced with book 4. The first was that I hadn't touched (even read) this half of the original MS in about 15 years, so there was a reasonable amount of work just to apply what I'd learned in the meantime. A bigger problem was the lack of plot. Now, the large anti-emotion plot arc definitely helped, and tied nicely into what was already there — but even so, it needed more. There was also the fear that maybe the old MS simply might not be good enough? I had little idea what to expect when I sat down to read it again, but found myself pleasantly surprised: it was kind of nice, I felt. Leeth had grown and changed more, however, thanks to all the additional trials I'd put her through while developing the 1^st three books, so stretches had to be rewritten: what was there was more the Leeth you saw straight out of the Institute: no d'Artelle spirit confrontation, nothing with Disten, and, a really huge difference — no Marcie in her life.

Due to the need to write a short piece for my local writers' group, the Marrickville Writers Corner, I thought that one incident briefly passed over in the MS deserved some expansion: the heartbreaking Luiz assassination. And while writing that piece, while Leeth crept through the dark apartment in shock at what had just happened, she heard a creepy scratching coming from a drawer in Luiz's desk. I had no idea what was coming, just that it connected to Luiz's nasty past, but that led to the black dagger. That tiny seed germinated into the other major plot element for book 4.

The title came surprisingly easily: Violent Causes having several meanings, all of which were applicable for this book, so that was one element that I didn't have a big struggle with. But with all the things that needed addressing, and my desire to keep as much as I could of what was there, somehow even getting to the stage of the MS ready to send off to Dave at ThEditors.com) seemed harder. I'd arranged a slot, and as the deadline approached I found I was struggling to meet it. In the end I sent it off before I'd done my usual 2^nd polish, which was stupid. I'd told myself it would make it easier for me to cut things if I hadn't made over-polished them. Instead, it just made more work for poor Dave.

And when I received his detailed critique, he had some big issues with some of the early sections, and lots of the early chapters had a lot of small issues, too. (Oops: note to self: never skip the polishing!) After some very fruitful discussions back and forth, we got a handle on them and a plan for what I should adjust, and I carried on. And after a month of hard work, I was halfway through Dave's comments, and it was the end of July. Sigh.

The Marcie Problem

There was also one major extra piece of plot to work in, involving Marcie, and a key point in that was to be Marcie's inclusion into one scene. The problem was, that scene was kind of tightly scripted, dramatic, and I could see no way to work Marcie in without disrupting a sequence I'd been looking forward to making concrete, for at least fifteen years. In fact, I let this scene block my writing for at least a year, because I wanted to work it out so I could move on to the next piece of the story. This was long before I understood the role of the unconscious, and the simple trick of just writing it down, or skipping past the block. Instead, I'd sit down, and try to work out the scene in my head… and eventually fall asleep, and have used up all the time I'd set aside for writing, with visible results of zero.

Yet here I was, in 2018, with that scene looking and working like a dream — I think it would make a great piece in a movie — and now I needed to add Marcie, in a significant way. So I worked my way closer to this with, not exactly a growing fear, since I had confidence in UTT and my unconscious… but some trepidation, let's say.

And then on Monday I was at the brink: the next thing to do was what I had begun thinking of as The Marcie Problem. Tuesday I visited Mum, and saw the Equalizer 2 with her and a friend (hi Jacqui!), and then had afternoon tea and dinner with Mum, and watched an episode of The Avengers (courtesy of my brother Jonathan: B&W, John Steed and Honor Blackman as Dr Cathy King, not the Marvel Avengers), followed by the Hammer Horror film The Hound of the Baskervilles with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. (He seemed tall. I looked him up: he was: 1.96m, 6'5"!)

So, no writing on Tuesday. A whole day with ‘no progress'. But I wasn't too worried, since panic and fear are your enemies and I knew I was just giving my unconscious more time to come up with something good. And it's always a great day, visiting Mum; not to mention, relaxing and having a great meal to boot!

So, Wednesday arrives, and still no breakthrough. I could also tell I wasn't going to get it without a bit more positive action. And now we come to the nub of this article, and what drove me to write it. Because this time, I was more sensitive to what was going on in my own mind.

I remembered my own advice, of using pencil and paper to write stuff down so you're not wasting mental energy juggling ideas in your mind while trying to create new ones. So I took my little hand-made A6-sized notepad with its 4-leaf folded ‘pages' clipped to it, and my trusty propelling pencil. There are some nuances there: that style of pencil, using 2B leads, means your letters are crisp and sharp and the physical act is effortless; and the hand-sized pad means it's not flexing and flopping and you're fighting to support it. It just fits in your hand, you can lie back on the sofa, comfy and warm, and think, and write as ideas spring to mind.

All trying to make it as frictionless as possible when the ideas start flowing, you see?

But I still didn't have my idea. What I did have was some issues. So I started writing down stuff, and also thinking. Not rushing myself. Not stressing myself because I wasn't actually writing the story. Just trying to make the solution coalesce out of whatever soup of ideas was floating around in my head.

What started happening was somehow like doing a jigsaw puzzle, except the pieces of the picture didn't exist until I thought of them, and it wasn't two dimensional but three. The depth part is not especially important, but the time dimension was critical. I started with asking "How would Marcie plausibly end up in this scene?"

(By the way, I'm going to avoid talking about this in a way that gives any spoilers.)

Marcie's appearance needed to fit in with a major plot strand we'd agreed on, that involved Harmon. But how would he know? So, that meant Nelson gave him the info. And then Harmon needed to persuade someone else. And that was kind of interesting. And then Marcie herself needed to find out enough to wind up in the scene. So I wrote that little sequence, which worked very plausibly and nicely I felt, and did good things for the plot, tension, and pacing. I now had the background of my jigsaw, in the sense of both the chain of events that led up to it, and of course I already had the tightly-written scene where Marcie would appear.

Her appearance also had to be significant: it'd be pretty weak if she just waved from the sidelines. Dave had suggested Marcie's appearance should cause problems for Leeth, so that was kind of the ‘shape' of one piece. But I still didn't see how to fit her in.

Now, I'd had one thought, too, that disturbed me: "if Marcie is here, and X is here too, then Scary-Y could easily result, and blow everything to pieces." But at the same time, they say you're supposed to place your characters at risk. Yikes! So that was percolating in the back of my mind.

1^st Wednesday of the month was my MWC meetup, so I gave a quick polish to a scene I'd written the week before, and headed off for a very convivial and inspiring evening at Where's Nick. But I still didn't have the Marcie Problem solved.

Thursday arrived, and I kept feeling, for some reason, that Marcie wasn't going to go alone into this scene. I kept imagining someone with her. Which just complicated things, I felt, and I didn't want to do it. But in the end, since I was just lying on the sofa and not exactly making massive progress, I shrugged and decided to explore that. I asked myself "How does Marcie go from where she is, to here?" and just started imagining and jotting down some points. That all seemed pretty natural, and that would put Marcie at the required place, with this other person. And their reaction to my smoothly-scripted scene would definitely fit into new-Harmon-plot-item-Z, and advance that.

Then Scary-Y idea popped back in my head.

And I suddenly saw that Scary-Y could easily unfold after the smoothly-scripted scene. And with that, the problem was solved. The solution wasn't to force Marcie and her scene to meld into the existing scene: it was to let that follow on and develop from the scene!

This definitely felt a Eureka moment.

So then I just let the characters do their stuff. All the different parties with their own agendas, colliding and reacting. Let me just have a count ([Spoilers stripped out]): total of 9 parties. And so events flowed, and the drama climbed, and Leeth pushed back, and things started spiralling into dangerous areas. Maybe half of it was just in my head, the other half the occasional explanatory note written down so I wouldn't forget, or a line or two of dialogue. My notes occupied less than two A6 pages of my tiny writing, but I had enough to set off and I was eager to do so. I broke for dinner, but basically wrote from 4pm till 1am, a bit over 4k words. Sitting back, I summarised it in the flush of excitement as "very plausible, didn't change the existing scene much at all, upped the tension, fulfilled more expectations, causes more troubles down the track, and also has some laughs and more character development, all while advancing the plot!"

And it was time for bed. Looking at the page, I saw that I just needed to write the emotional aftermath, and in due course explore the repercussions of what happened. "I'll just write a little bit, to start that," I thought. Then sat back and saw it was 2am. I'd summarise that effort as taking what had happened to a whole new level. Leeth once again surprised me; but this time, herself, too, and even scared herself.

So I ended the day feeling high, extremely pleased with how it all worked out, and of course relieved to have the Marcie Problem solved and the pressure/stress removed.

I won't have a chance to do any editing or writing today, and I'll be taking a day off tomorrow, so no progress then, either. And I still have the other half of the MS critique to work through. But I'm feeling much more relaxed now. Hopefully, there should only be small bumps in the road ahead.

So, what's next? I hope to have my editing and polishing done by around the end of August. Hopefully I'll find a slot in Dave's schedule for a 2^nd round critique, and then with any luck a much easier job for both him and myself following that. Mirella is on the job with the cover design (again, with another idea mainly from Dave), and then I need to try to do some proper marketing for a month or two before releasing this one. So my guess is it will be ready near the end of the year.

Better late than half-baked.

Amazon book tweaks — Categories, Keywords, reviews, and links

Following some discussions with Barbara Strickland (Amorina Rose's blog) about Amazon Categories and Keywords, and remembering some of what Lama Jabr explained in one Amazon publishing seminar, and after reading this article Six Things You Should Be Including in Your EBook (and Probably Aren't) by David Kudler, I decided to revise all three of my books for Amazon.

What I wanted to do:

• Make sure I had links to each book in the series so far.
• Follow the suggestion to add a review link right at the end of the book.
• Make sure my categories and keywords were good.

It took me about a day to update the first book, four hours for the second, and an hour for the third. Hopefully this article will help you tweak your first book in less time than I took for mine.

The tweaking is in two parts: tweaking the copy of your MS (probably in .docx or .odt format), and editing your ‘book details' on Amazon.

Links

It also occurred to me (largely because Barbara Strickland had recently commented on how attractive the covers were), that a thumbnail of each cover would make a more attractive link than just the plain text title. Like so:

Novels by L. J. Kendall

The Leeth Dossier:

Wild Thing
Harsh Lessons
Shadow Hunt
Violent Causes
…

(By the third book, I even realised I should include a link to my Amazon author page!)

While doing this, I found Calibre doesn't preserve hyperlinks on images when you convert to .mobi format, which is what I had been using for upload to Amazon. But the developer, Kovid Goyal, said that format was pretty obsolete, and recommended a different one. I tried epub, and that was just fine.

I wanted to put country-independent links to my other books, in each book. Links to the appropriate Amazon store for the reader's country.  I didn't want to do it through Amazon's OneLink system:
https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/help/node/topic/202165020?ac-ms-src=faqonelinklp&cid=faqonelinklp

merely because I myself am leery of systems that earn money from people clicking on links.  Granted, I think it's only a few cents, and only if they actually buy the product, but still...  Maybe that's just me being weird, but maybe other people have a distaste for that, too.

Image composition on Linux

I spent some time grabbing images for those buttons to make my own.

I then spent 90 mins finding image editing software that would let me combine them together, for Linux. Lots were recommended, but apparently the idea of a canvas on which you simply drop some images and move them around is a bizarre mental model. Well, apart from the Gimp, but I thought if I could find any other program to do that, I'd probably save time compared to working out how to perform even that simple feat using the Gimp's diabolical UI.

In the end, I found the KDE program KolourPaint, which was very simple and intuitive — it was easy to open up images, and copy them onto a single canvas and then move them around.

Reviews

Before I did any of this, I first contacted Amazon directly to ask if it was okay to use generalised links that pointed to the reader's local Amazon store, instead of to the US one only (say). I specifically asked if it was okay to use bookshow.me. The representative responded and said that was fine.

E.g. the country-independent links for my books in Amazon look like this:

Wild Thing: http://bookshow.me/B019DQVR76

Harsh Lessons: http://bookShow.me/B01HA4FALC

Shadow Hunt: http://bookShow.me/B06XVH355Q

Previously my Afterword asked people to review the book, but didn't offer them any help to do so. In contrast, the Six Things article described how to construct a link directly to a "rate/review" page for your book so the reader just needs one click, with no typing or searching to arrive there.

I also added a note that reviewers will need to login (to Amazon or Goodreads respectively), to be able to write a review.

So the idea is to add a note at the end, saying something like:

"I hope you enjoyed reading this. If you did, consider rating and/or reviewing it. Thank you!"

(You'll need to sign in to your account(s).)

The Six Things article used an image to click on for the reviews, which I think is more appealing and ‘button-like' to click on than just text. So I grabbed some images from Goodreads and Amazon to make the buttons. I feel that's safe, as Amazon owns Goodreads, and I'm only directing readers to Amazon sites. If you're not selling through Amazon, of course you'd need to pick review sites related to your retailer.

Goodreads review

But the link structures for reviews described by the 2013 Six Things article have changed since it was written. E.g. for Goodreads they'd said:

… um, I can't find it, actually. Maybe David didn't spell it out? He does describe how to find the book ID, though. (You can find it out just by clicking on a Goodreads review link and inspecting the URL.)

Anyway, the review link needs to look like:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/edit/<goodreads-Book ID number>
Just search for your book in Goodreads to determine your book's ID and examine the link. E.g. for Shadow Hunt the book link is https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34823396-shadow-hunt, so the book ID is 34823396, and the review link becomes https://www.goodreads.com/review/edit/34823396

Amazon review

For Amazon, you determine your Amazon book ID (ASIN) the same way: find your book and examine the URL.

The example book link http://www.amazon.com/Your-Book-Title-ebook/dp/B00EXAMPLE/ is pretty correct, except the http has changed to the more secure https. E.g. Shadow Hunt is https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Hunt-Leeth-Dossier-Book-ebook/dp/B06XVH355Q/

But the link the article describes for reviews, "http://www.amazon.com/Your-Title-ebook/product-reviews/", is now quite different, and the Amazon review link is now coded like this:
https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_wr_but_top?ie=UTF8&channel=glance-detail&asin=B00EXAMPLE

E.g. since Shadow Hunt's Amazon ASIN is B06XVH355Q, the URL for its review is: https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_wr_but_top?ie=UTF8&channel=glance-detail&asin=B06XVH355Q

I also thought it made sense to repeat the links to all the books in the series at the end, since at that point the reader is more likely to know if they'd like to read more of your work.

Amazon Categories and Keywords

The categories & keywords topic is where things get interesting...

Amazon have a good help page about setting them up:
https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200652170

It turns out that everything on that page is essential reading. I had ignored it.  So my keywords were not doing what they should.  E.g. I didn't know you had to also apply one (or two) of your categories as keywords, for certain Amazon searches (category searches?) to work for your books.
Watching the video that's also on that page suddenly made a whole lot of things really, really clear.  E.g. the stuff at the 3min40s mark where she says something like "Words in the title, categories, and description, will already be part of the search criteria: try to say something new".  Also, she says you should play around with the keywords and see which work best — I've never done that!

It's worth watching — maybe several times.

Setting Amazon categories

From https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200652170:

"Browse categories are the sections of the Amazon site where customers can find your book. Think of browse categories like the sections of a physical bookstore (fiction, history, and so on).

"During title setup, you'll select a BISAC (Book Industry Standards and Communications) code. The codes you choose, along with your selected keywords, are used to place your book into certain categories, or browse paths, on Amazon. After your book has an Amazon listing, your book's category will appear under the Product Details section of your listing. This will be the path a customer can follow to find your book. [...]

"You can choose up to two BISAC codes for your book. We may also assign additional browse categories depending on your BISAC selections and assigned keywords."

The article also includes tips on choosing categories, and you should definitely read it.

Setting Amazon Keywords

Also note the topic "Categories with Keyword Requirements." For sci-fi and fantasy that links to this page: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201216150

Now, for each of my books I'd just made up keywords that I felt best reflected it, and entered those. I suspect I'm not following best practice even now, but at least I'm choosing keywords from the above list. I assume these are words which are most used by readers in Amazon searches.

You might be able to discover them by typing a search term and seeing what words auto-complete in the Kindle store?

Here's my before and after list of keywords for each book:

Keywords — Wild Thing, before
Science fiction	Urban fantasy
Strong female lead	Magic
Near future	Abusive relationship
Adult situations

Keywords — Wild Thing, after
cyberpunk	Urban
Strong female lead	paranormal
horror	Coming of age
Adult situations

Keywords — Harsh Lessons, before
strong female lead	some adult situations
some humor	some violence
assassin	covert agency

I also changed the category from Fiction > Science Fiction > Action & Adventure, to Fiction > Science Fiction > Cyberpunk

Keywords — Harsh Lessons, after
cyberpunk	urban, fantasy
strong female lead	paranormal
spy, spies, assassin, covert, agency	bully, bullies, bullying
thriller

(I also made the same category change for Shadow Hunt.)

Keywords — Shadow Hunt, before
thriller	cyberpunk
mutants	wizard
magic	coming of age
vampire

Keywords — Shadow Hunt, after
thriller	cyberpunk
strong female lead	magic, wizard, paranormal
spy, spies, assassin, covert, agency	coming of age
vampire

So, that's it: a bit fiddly, bit not too bad. I don't expect dramatic changes, but hopefully the rate of reviews will climb from nothing (for almost a year) to a handful of new reviews!

To Do

What I've failed to do (yet) is add the attractive-clicky-button links to make social media sharing of your book super easy. I think that might even be the most important thing to do!

The Six Things article describes how to set up sharing links for Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Q&A part 4 — the Darkness of the Story

This is the 4^th part (of four) articles from the Q&A I had with AndyK much earlier in the year. (There were some other topics we discussed, but I think four articles is more than enough!)

Spoiler alert!

Once again, because we discussed books 1 & 2, this contains spoilers if you haven't read them: i.e., it’s only intended for people who've read Wild Thing and Harsh Lessons.

L: I have had a few people (a teacher, a book store owner, and a someone in the book industry), tell me it is definitely Young Adult: less dark than some of the stuff available.  Amazing, yes?  But I never intended it for that market.  And I've had other people (YA readers) tell me it's definitely not.

I tend to agree with that.

A: Holy... YA? I mean… I did read my share of YA fiction and the emotional setup of the story is nowhere near what YA fiction presents.
Hell it's not even suited for a lot of ‘mature readers’ to be honest.

L: That was my feeling!  Yet (e.g.) my local chemist's son (about 15? — hi, Damian!) is greatly enjoying the series, and was waiting eagerly for the 3^rd.  Like I said, I've had a few people — who I trust to know what's acceptable as YA — say it definitely is.  I find that disturbing and a bit mind boggling.

Some of the moments when I realised what Harmon would do, chilled and appalled me. And definitely, I was literally crying while writing some of that stuff, on more than one occasion.

A: I can imagine that.

Although you did leave out the actual descriptions of the torture or sex. Come to think of it: why? I mean, this story is seriously not for children anyway. And I guess it would make it a bit clearer if this is not left to the reader's imagination. Especially book 2 is pretty vague in that regard.

In book 1 her first time is pretty clear. How the dynamic is set and what very probably happened and how. Same is true with her little encounter with the security chief. Where she used her sexuality as a weapon, or as a means to an end, for the first time. Again, could be a bit more detailed but was pretty clear how the dynamic between those two would be.

The torture stuff with gags and beating is somewhat described but since it's only towards the very end if I remember correctly it's not that central to the story yet. But it could have been a bit more explicit to not leave any doubts in the reader's mind.

But in book 2 things get very vague in that regard. The sex scene after the spanking is totally left to the reader's imagination. And at that point clarity would be important.

But most puzzling is the abuse/torture parts. There are only some flashbacks mentioned by Leeth and those too leave a bit too much to interpretation. Some might imagine things worse than they were. Some may imagine them less bad. And that would result in not really understanding the reactions that follow. You implied he forced her to hurt herself (which is a strange choice. Using the bondage to that end will only lead to another problem just like with the spanking, wouldn't it?)

Don't get me wrong, I'm neither an advocate for explicit scenes in books. Nor am I an adversary to it. But sometimes they could be truly part of the story and help clarify it. Show certain dynamics in the relationship. Like I am sure it would have in this case.

L: The second most important reason for leaving out the detail was to allow readers of different fortitude levels to imagine a level of abuse they were comfortable with.  If I made it more explicit, I think it would have been too much for many people.  I'm definitely walking a tightrope as it is.

A: But it's important to know how and what she is suffering through there. To understand how far gone (or faulty) Harmon's reasoning is. And also to understand what she is REALLY going through.

Leaving it to the imagination of the reader leads to every reader having a (maybe vastly) different story in their head. Making that story connect to the outlines provided might result in friction, head scratching or gaping holes.

L: To my mind, what's happening and what she's going through is quite extreme.  So I hope no reader imagines something worse than what I have imagined!  I also think it's reasonable and even healthy for readers to only imagine the worst they're individually comfortable with.

In a nutshell: bad stuff is happening to her.

Knowing just that sketchy detail is enough to let a reader follow the story.  Of course, I have to provide much more detail than that to make the reader feel the truth of that glib summary.

A: Well, my psychology lessons were decades ago but:

What Harmon creates is psychic traumas.
Traumas can lead to PTSD.
PTSD is the last thing any operative needs. (Well it's the last thing anybody needs, really)
Also it is obvious what he is doing can only lead to alienation at the very best. More probable it will lead to hate. In the uniquely human self preservation ignoring form of ‘I don't care if I die as long as I take him with me’.

So I have a hard time seeing why a psychologist would go that way. There are less personal ways to produce pressure.

That only leaves one good explanation I can get behind: He is a sick bastard who puts his scientific work second and his base lusts first.

L: Keep in mind that people can have major psychological breakthroughs when they survive a great stress, in our world; and that in Leeth's world, magic exists and is another possible outcome. See what you think of Harmon at the end of book 3.  I think he's ‘blinded by science’ — and he and Leeth are in many ways ideally unsuited: each provokes the other.  But he's shocked by much of what Leeth does, despite much of it being his responsibility.

A: I still smirk and shake my head at the scene in book 1 where she hunts the jogger. But yes, that's what he raised and trained her to. Again… he should have known that everybody needs some form of moral guidelines. Else we are animals guided by instinct. (Didn't Godsson say that somewhere in book 1?)

L: There are also some truly delicious scenes with Leeth I'm dying to write.

A: I am curious to read them. She does deserve a bit of a breather.

L: I certainly agree.  I think every reader would be pretty well unanimous in that opinion, too.

A: Actually it is much overdue. I just read the other reviews on the books on amazon.de and then amazon.com after I wrote mine for book 1. And there are some pretty harsh things there. Seems most people feel a lot stronger about it than I do... some of it is way unfair and under the belt. But... you did get under your readers skin. Quite an accomplishment in and of itself!

L: I agree. I went and had Google translate a couple of German reviews, recently. And US reviewers seemed to be more offended than anyone else. So that was when I finally realised I hadn't given enough warning to readers, in the Book Description on Amazon.

A: Yes. It's pretty different from most other stories out there. Going in with the wrong expectations is probably not only draining but even a bit traumatic.

L: There is that! Apart from the one review that said something like ‘poorly executed, doesn't work’.

A: That doesn't fly. You can always be of a different opinions about the story. But the craft part of the trade can be objectively analyzed. And it's definitely not poorly executed.

L: There's also a huge difference between leaving something to the reader's imagination, with hints, and making it explicit.

As well as that, by leaving it vague, and having the reader fill in the details (to the level they're comfortable with), I think makes it more powerful, because the reader is supplying the missing parts.

A: I understand. But those missing parts are not what you imagined for the story. So the more vague the descriptions get the more readers have to fill in. And the farther they get from the ‘facts’. And that makes it hard to understand developments and reactions in the book based on this abuse and torture.

L: But that's an accepted (if odd) truth: each reader brings themselves to each book they read, so each book a person reads is a collaborative experience produced by the author and the reader together.  So each experience of the book is unique.

If a book is well-written, I think the experience would tend to be more consistent across all readers, at least on the ‘factual’ side: what happens.  But I think the emotional experience for a well-written book would vary a lot; and maybe it would vary more from person to person, the better it's written, because it would resonate with each person's emotional experience differently?

Interesting: I'd not thought about that so deeply before.

A: For example I still don't know what he did to her before her breakdown. Did he use the compulsion to force her to maim herself? And then mock her about it? If yes then that is a new level  of short-sightedness on his part. If no than what did happen? I always had the feeling I missed something there....

L: Yes, and yes.  But it's not purely short-sightedness: his theory demands such kinds of stresses.

I'm reminded of a panel in Scott McCloud's ‘Understanding Comics’ where he illustrates exactly that point: you see an axe-wielding maniac, you see the victim in the lonely house, and then it pulls right back and you just ‘hear’ the scream.

A: Well.. comics are depictions which put them in a different legal setup. They have no choice unless they want to be seriously restricted in their sales channels. You can write about dicks and pussy and what to do with them all day long and still sell it on Amazon.

L: That's true, but McCloud was making a point about the artistic/emotional effect, ignoring the legal angle.  And I do think it's true.

Interestingly perhaps, I think graphic novels tend to be less gruesome than some Hollywood films or TV shows.  I wonder why?  Maybe because each moment is frozen, and available to be easily studied at length.

Also, I guess the main question is how much is left to interpretation and how much can be misinterpreted.

A: True.  Misinterpretation is unwanted; under- or over-estimating I think is less problematic.

L: For the scene where she almost detonated, emotionally, I think it was clear what was going on, physically.  If I'd added more, I think I'd be writing an erotic passage (at least, for people who like spankings or - shudder - torture).  I don't really think it would have added necessary clarity.

A: Hmm. Hard to say. I only had the feeling I was missing a piece of the picture there. Especially how the dynamic between those two was at that point.

L: By writing it this way, I'm allowing the reader to set the intensity level to whatever they're comfortable with.  In my own mind, it was pretty extreme, and I think for the vast majority of people, reading about torture is the very last thing they want to suffer through.  I would hate for the books to be categorised as ‘torture porn’.

A: Hmm. Wouldn't you say the intensity level was what it was at that point? The things that happened were the things you imagined to happen. Not what I imagined. Not what any other reader imagined.

L: Well, yes.  But then I'm very non- post-modern, and reasonably absolutist.

A: I agree with you that nobody needs to read about the smallest gory detail that is of no consequence to the story. But gory details that ARE of consequence? Or sex scenes that do have implications? I guess it wouldn't be bad to go into as much detail as necessary to clear out any misunderstandings or misinterpretations.

L: I felt more comfortable taking the risk of some misinterpretation (since I felt the broad facts would be quite clear), rather than being overly confronting and possibly losing many readers.  I think the books are pretty far out on the limb of what people can accept, as is!

A: But I know… you already got a lot of flak for the dark parts of the books and this would probably antagonize the torch-and-pitchfork faction even more...

L: Yes. I'm confident that's basically a certainty.

I don't think there'd be much lack of understanding as it's written, since her reactions tell the reader that it was very bad indeed: enough to shatter her faith and trust, and to need to escape.  And we've seen by this stage that she can endure a lot, so the strong implication is that it gets really bad.

A: Yes. But at least for me it left the feeling I missed a crucial part of the story. Not some gory detail but what did he actually do? Is he just over eager? Is he a bit twisted? Is he totally sick? You know that plays into the question we discussed earlier: How redeemable is Harmon?

L: Well, what he did was just as you supposed, further above.  And various humiliations. Is he a bit twisted?  Yes.  Totally sick? No.  How redeemable is he? Well, his actions will speak louder than words in the long run, obviously.

Maybe it would be (barely) acceptable in Germany, and the UK (I'm interested that at last look, I'd had no 1-star reviews in the UK!), where readers can handle it better, somehow?  In the US, I think there would have been a massive reaction against it.

A: ALL reviews in .de are pretty high.
Apart from that... every adult should be able to distinguish between fact and fiction. And if a story is told that demands a certain level of explicit detail... so be it.

L: I don't think that's the issue: my hunch is they identified enough with the character to feel (subconsciously) that they were participating, and felt soiled by feeling that way; and especially, they assume that most other people would react that same way: and feel I am ‘polluting’ large numbers of people.  That's my guess.

You know how some people react completely irrationally when you ‘push their buttons’?  I think my books trigger that kind of reaction in some people.

But fundamentally, I didn't think that an extra level of explicitness in the abuse or in the sex parts would really add to the deeper understanding of the books.

A: As you are the author I accept your judgement.

L: Thanks!  I do think it has to be that way.

A: But I dare to disagree. :}

L: And that too is 100% fine, and the way it has to be.

A: I could accept you decided based on the (prognosed) critical or public reception. But that the story didn't need it? I don't know. I still feel like I am missing a part of the picture. But again I am totally aware that that might be just me.

L: I'd honestly estimate that the decision was 70% that the story didn't need it, 20% concern over public reaction, and 10% trusting in my editor's advice.

My editor advised me to tone it down (and I did), but pushed me to tone it down/remove even more, but I couldn't or wouldn't, since it would have changed the dynamic by reducing the abuse. He was quite clear: he said I would lose readers because of it. But I decided the story demanded it, so I kept it in. The story and the characters are more important to me than profit or success.

A: You don't make a name for yourself by doing it the way everybody else does. Your story is interesting because it is different. Its not ‘enjoyable’ like the mainstream out there. Maybe it could have used some more ‘ups’ in between. But the story and what happens is told well. And it all makes it feel pretty unique. And that is a GOOD thing.

I actually doubt you would have reached more people by lightening it up. Well... what kind of story would have been left anyway?

L: I completely agree.  And I genuinely feel there is considerable originality in my series; and that that's very much a good thing.

A: For anybody not familiar with SR [Shadowrun] the story is a revelation. And that shows in the reviews. And for those who know SR it is still a very well made re-imagination with some pretty serious deviations. And ultimately it's about characters anyway and at least Leeth and Harmon are unique. So is Godsson and the Enemy of Mankind (I never mentioned how much I like her)

L: Cool: that's exactly my feeling, too.  Yeah, d'Artelle was pretty scary.

A: Well... the Department is a bit stereotypical so far. Apart from Dojo. But that's fine. Not everything needs to be unique.

L: I think that's a very fair comment.  The Department was certainly heavily influenced by both the Max Headroom TV series and Nikita (the French film).  I'm not sure if Nikita was released before or after Leeth's birth in my mind.

I think the author Kristin Cashore also has a very original ‘something’ about her fantasy novels, that help make them wonderfully appealing (at least, to me).  I think originality helps.

A: Well.. if you ask me.. it helps. But it's not the most important part. Good execution and consistency is important as well.

L: Quite!  I think all the elements have to be at least basically sound: if any aspect is bad, it ruins a book.  And if every aspect is great, you have a masterpiece of its kind.

And my hope is that Leeth is a truly unique character.  I've read everything I can where the main character sounded like she might be similar.  So far, I haven't found her twin!

A: She definitely is unique. So are the other characters mentioned above.
Though she did remind me of a character in a Shadowrun novel I read ages ago. I just cant remember the title. (Some girl experimented on by a megacorp that gets freed during a Run...)

L: I read several of the SR novels; I bought one, Striper Assassin (I tend to buy all the books I discover with a possibly-similar character, hoping that no one else traverses the same path as me. So far, so good!), but didn't think she was very similar.

But I think my editor was observing that it was more likely to have mass market appeal: avoid offending a good percentage of your readers.

A: Now, this is something completely different but this argument reminds me of Kingdom Death: Monster. When he released it, it had no mass market appeal at all. Nobody was even willing to fund it. It is controversial, offensive, sexist as hell and the antithesis of political correctness. And by now it is the most successful game ever brought to Kickstarter.

What I want to say: just because you DON'T whore yourself out to the mass market does not mean you can't be successful. Or will reach a lot of fans. Many of which will come to you just because you do your thing.

L: I know what you're saying, and I agree.  But I'm also stubborn (perhaps a little less than Leeth), so I won't make changes that would compromise the story or the characters' integrity.

If I feel strongly about something, I won't change it.  If I'm ambivalent, or undecided, I'm happy to accept input and suggestions and advice.

But he didn't pressure me hard: he understood what I was doing, and why; he just wanted to be sure I understood the risks I was taking, and the consequences.

I had to think about what I'd consider a success, and set a modest bar:

if it generated more hours of ‘enjoyment’ (appreciation?) than hours of work to create it, I'd consider it a success.  (Assuming one reader needs about 8 hrs to read one book.)

A: And it is good you didn't cave (for the most part). And it is refreshing to hear somebody is going through all that work mainly for the fun of it.

L: I imagine many (most?) writers do.  But I'm also trying hard to make the quality at least as high as traditionally-published books.

---

Anyway, so that wraps up the Q&A between AndyK and myself.

And here's a final snippet of news for anyone who's read right to the end: I've finally sorted out the issues with the templates I used for LibreOffice, so I've been able to make the mass-market (A-format: 4"x7") editions. I worried that someone browsing the print books wouldn't get the ‘warning’ about the story's darkness that I added to the Book Description at Amazon; so I inserted a leaf with excerpts from the reviews I've received. I also made a couple of other small changes: including using the same nice quotation marks for dialogue that I used in Shadow Hunt. (I gave up waiting for the Find/Replace bug in LibreOffice to be fixed, and just spent a day or two on a multi-program edit that worked around it.)

Part of the drive for getting the updated print editions ready was my attendance in two weeks' time at a small (and Free!) speculative fiction convention. (Main days: Sat 4^th — Sun 5^th November. See: https://www.facebook.com/sydneyfreecons/)

Q&A part 3

This is the 3^rd part (of four) articles from the Q&A I had with AndyK much earlier in the year. The topic this time: which character is most evil?

Spoiler alert!

Once again, because we discussed books 1 & 2, this contains spoilers if you haven't read them: i.e., it's only intended for people who've read Wild Thing and Harsh Lessons.

Which Character is Most Evil?

L: Harmon sees himself as logical, clinical, dispassionate, and sees those all as good things. He tells himself that shaping Leeth to develop magical powers is a great gift to her. (From what I've read, there are some psychologists in the real world who are equally blind to the human side of their science.)

A: Until the point where he put his dispassionate thingie into her panties. And generates stress by putting her in gags and schoolgirl uniforms.

It should have been obvious even to himself that he lost it there. And that their relationship is steering towards a big disaster.

L: Well, yes.  And he does know he lost it there.  Though he avoids thinking about that, and blames her for goading him to that point, and then avoids further thought on the subject.

And he also sees Leeth as resisting and obstructing and heading them towards disaster.  In his mind, if she just was a little more ‘sensible", it would all work out.

But Harmon is also consciously trying not to value their relationship, since that would make it harder to carry out his experiment.

But, wow, worse than Stalin — that's saying something!

A: Stalin loved his children. He adored his daughter. :}

L: Erk!

But it's an interesting question, I think: is everyone redeemable, or are some people beyond redemption?  My feeling is there are some people who are irredeemable, but they're a tiny minority.

I think much of what Harmon has done is inexcusable, and to the meagre extent he thinks about it, he irrationally blames Leeth for pushing him so far.

A: Yeah.. redirection and deflection. Again as a shrink he should be able to see the signs in himself.

L: He should be able to.  But I have read of psychologists who fail in exactly that way, in the real world. Which I think is classic rationalisation.

A: And that, yes.

L: I mean it's what set him on the slippery slope. And he completely misunderstood himself (thinking he could remain detached), and refused to see how much Leeth was in fact breaking down his detachment.

A: Lust and control... I don't see any emotional attachment there?

L: I'm offering that merely to explain my thinking, that I think what he did was plausible: not to defend his actions!

A: Of course. I know. I try to put myself in his head and I have trouble understanding his decisions. I don't have this problem with any other of your characters. To the extent I got introduced to them.

L: That probably means you're a lot more emotionally intelligent than Harmon.  I think a lot of people would have trouble getting inside his head.  And probably most people would be reluctant to even try.

Come to think of it, that may be the root of the horror from some readers: they may have hated being presented with the possibility of getting inside such a head.  Perhaps they felt it might pollute them. (For which I'm sorry.)

Leeth is incredibly stubborn, strong willed and self certain. She copes with stress to an astonishing degree. So to get her to a point where ‘something must give' requires torment way beyond what any non-psychopath would allow. Harmon knows he would never ever get permission to do what he's doing if he asked, or if anyone found out.

A: But this torture also means he is producing someone who hates and despises him. A mortal enemy.

He should know that and look for a better way if he isn't doing it because he enjoys it.

L: Not while she believed he was doing it for some good reason.  ‘For her own good.'  After that, yeah, it becomes close to impossible for him.

But I don't see how I could have followed the other approach: pretending to care for her while continually putting her under stress. Sooner rather than later she'd complain; and yet he would keep doing it, and so the pretence would break down.

The justification Harmon gives himself for doing what he did, apart from the ‘need' to prevent her acting against the Dept, was the knowledge that it will start generating pressure, and force her to ‘the next level'. It's probably lucky for Harmon that she escaped at the end of book 2 — too much pressure tends to end in a catastrophic explosion.

In my view, after magic returned, extra options appeared for some people when they are placed under unbearable stress. Disten (with Godsson's magical change) is exploiting one of these.  What he does seems to me far crueller than what Harmon does to Leeth.  Even I think it's utterly horrible.

A: You think so? I would STRONGLY disagree there.
This alien spirit or whatever it is, tries to better humans. By taking away their emotions. Okay, he kills without much hesitation but... In a twisted way it seems as if he actually wants to help. He is just.... alien. I don't know all that much about his motivations yet. I truly can't bring myself to see him as the main antagonist of the story. Even if he is some form of toxic/insect spirit who took over in a moment of extreme distress he still is not THAT irredeemable to me.

Harmon on the other hand, causes pain. Deliberately. And to someone who is dependent on him. Who is helpless. Who he should nurture and protect. He causes her suffering and uses her to satiate his sexual urges. So... I am neither particularly religious (nor particularly moral for that matter) but he is about the most irredeemable character I can remember reading about. And yes, I read ‘Mein Kampf' and a biography about Stalin.

L: The ‘choices' Disten offers his paired victims is literally the worst thing I can imagine anyone suffering through. He consciously does it to put them in a situation where the possible responses are madness or complete abandonment of the ability to experience emotion. With the result that most of them (are so decent and human) that they prefer a third option, and choose death rather than co-operation.

A: Hmm... vs. putting a compulsion on a young girl that forces her to do exactly what she does not want to do. Robbing her free will. Torturing her, abusing her, raping her. Well... I have a clear winner here.:}

L: To me, trying to force someone else to do even worse things than that, to someone they love, feels far, far worse.

For the human and emotional threads, Harmon and Leeth's awful relationship is at the heart of the first several books.  But a big theme is the importance of emotions.  The more I think about that, the more I suspect that emotions will be the key to the survival of our species in real life, in the long term. [Later note: We will need to create AI which has empathy and experiences emotions.]

A: Hmm… maybe this explains why we have such a different view of who the main villain is in your story.

Because it's hate and greed that drives us to do all the awful things humans do. Wars, environmental destruction... the list is endless.

And yes, I know, for all the dark emotions there are light ones. The question everyone has to answer for themselves is if the tradeoff is worth it.

L: See what you think of Harmon at the end of book 3.  I think Harmon is ‘blinded by science' — and he and Leeth are in many ways ideally unsuited: each provokes the other.  But he's shocked by much of what Leeth does, despite much of it being his responsibility.

A: ‘blinded by science' doesn't fly.... nonono  :-}
The Scopolamine I could understand. But he also used a rape drug on her to pretty much steal her virginity. He can't book that under science. And what he did to her in book two is just about dominance and control. About his own ego, his own lusts and not about science. Add these ‘games' he plays with her… if all this is science why did he go to such great lengths to prevent her from talking about it? If he could explain it as a scientific method then why hide?

I would seriously say if you wanted Harmon to be in any way a redeemable character you made him far too extreme.

It would be interesting to see a poll from all your readers how they see the antagonists in the story. Maybe I'm alone in my judgement. But I seriously doubt it.

#Harmon_must_die :-}

L: I'm sure you would be in good company! The aphrodisiac drug and sex are a total failure of ethics and morality: he fell to temptation; a temptation which he himself (subconsciously) engineered. There is no excuse for that. But his motivations were more complex than that.

Harmon would say Leeth's personality and her development is important, and he does not want to stunt it, just ‘direct' it. He wants her to grow, even though the decisions she typically makes are often enormously frustrating to him. But he admires her enormously, too. He wishes she would be more compliant, even while recognising that a compliant personality would be completely unsuitable for his scientific needs.

A: Well, of course she doesn't listen to him. As a shrink he should know that raising her in an emotional vacuum will also waste any possibility to ‘bond' with him. He wouldn't need to love her to hold her and comfort her. And this would build trust and a means to direct and control her. I don't quite understood why he wasted that.

By the time of his great betrayal in book two of course all those options were gone. By then he made himself into her enemy. Again something that seems short sighted to me.

I do understand Leeth's character and her decisions pretty well. They are plausible.

But Harmon's character... his decisions puzzle me still. Is he on the line of ‘intelligent people make dumb decisions too' or more ‘things get bad quick if you succumb to lust and animalistic desires"?

L: Partly it's a mixture of both. But more importantly, controlling her is only a means to an end for Harmon. His main purpose is to stress her enough to make her magic Unfold, as his theory predicts will happen.

Affectionate touching makes Harmon acutely uncomfortable. 

A: That is actually an important information. Leeth mentions it once if I remember correctly. But it didn't really register with me.

But it hints that something is pretty ‘off' with him...

L: Yes. And tied in with that is his belief, as you say, that ‘things get bad quick if you succumb to lust and animalistic desires'.  I see him as not at all emotionally wise — perhaps what drew him to studying the subject of psychology: to try to make sense of people.

A: That is an interesting tidbit of information. Might not be a bad idea to weave that into the story. That Harmon is ‘damaged goods' himself.

Maybe that would make readers a little bit sympathetic for this character.

L: Deep down, he feels it's obvious that he knows what's best for Leeth, and she should just do as she's told by him.  So that's what drives the ‘intelligent person making dumb decisions' aspect.

A: Okay, I can get behind that. But the very essence of ‘intelligent' or ‘rational' is that he reflects on his decisions. That should result in the realization that his approach simply doesn't work and only alienates her further.

But I get it, he is the type of guy that doesn't use a chisel if he can use a mallet. And that's what steers him (them) into this disaster.

L: Perhaps the thing that most gets under his skin is having his advice (instructions) ignored or rejected.

A: Okay, this, again, makes sense for the character. But with all his education in this field he should understand the mechanics why someone (especially a child) accepts guidance. And under which circumstances it does not.

L: I agree that Harmon is quite extreme. Whether he's too extreme is something each reader of course judges for themselves. But in my view, even so, Leeth is more than Harmon can handle.

A: I am very curious to see that. Her breakout and rescue is a nice first glimpse…

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And I think that will do for now. The final topic we covered, that I plan to share, was the darkness of the story. I'll leave that until next time.