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!

Leeth’s Journey So Far: “Four Books!”

Chatting to an author friend today (Barbara Strickland), about what lay ahead for Leeth, she asked whether my idea for the series in the longer term was to pursue the action path or the emotional side of things?

I’m four books in now, and so far I believe I’ve delved deeply into both sides.  I had to stop and think though, to consider Barbara’s question.  Thirty years ago, I thought the series would be a sci-fi/fantasy action series, but when it came down to it, I couldn’t tell the story without honoring the depths of the characters.

(Because I love Mirella’s cover designs, let me just brighten this short post by including them here:)

Anyway, I realised my answer to Barbara’s question was “both”, even though it means I’ll need to continue a tricky balancing act.  I mustn’t let the excitement of the action elements of Leeth’s dramatic life distract me from the compelling human and emotional side of her story as it unfolds.  There’s no chance of losing sight of that in Book 5, Lost Girl, but in later volumes it may be something I’ll need to keep in the forefront of my mind.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I’ll finish with a quick status update.  In August, Galaxy Bookshop hosted the launch (see the video) for Violent Causes (The Leeth Dossier Vol. 4): all my books are available on the shelves there!  As well, I’ve been learning bits and pieces about book marketing.  I’d much rather be writing, so I plan to go back to devoting myself to that — soon.  Maybe I’ll spend one day a week on the marketing side.

Things I’ve been learning about are Facebook ads from Mark Dawson and Nick Stephenson, Amazon ads from Bryan Cohen (I even created some ads), drawing up a far too exhaustive marketing plan, and learning bits about getting reviews and starting up a mailing list.  I also set up my Facebook Author Page (which I gather if you Like it, you’ll be notified when I post something there).  I also 99% converted my Blogger blog site into a kind of web site, only to stumble at the final hurdle.  Two days before I discovered how to overcome that last problem, I gave up and recreated my website in Wordpress.org.  It’s in pretty good shape, though I still have a small list of things to do.  Via my hairdresser Sebastian I discovered the talented Kellie M Davies and through her, the Aussie Speculative Fiction (ASF) FB group.

I also sent some books down to Bendi-con as part of an ASF contingent, and some are on their way soon to Supanova Adelaide and Supanova Brisbane with the same group of Aussie authors.  (We also had a small get-together in Sydney CBD, which was a great evening.)

Roger Patulny kindly agreed to shift the meeting date for our local writers’ group Authora Australis to a Wednesday that didn’t clash with the Sydney Mediaeval and Renaissance Group’s monthly meetings (thanks, Roger et al!), so I can attend regularly.  And this Sunday (Oct 13) Kristyn M Levis will be talking to our Book Marketing discussion group about Instagram for Authors.

I also created my first Nielsen “Book2Look” book widget (“biblet”) for Wild Thing.  Biblets let you look inside a book, share it on social media, find out where to buy it, and more.  Oh, and I had a flash fiction sci-fi story accepted by Antipodean SF magazine, called Dangerous January (which will be available there for a limited time).  Which also reminds me: I completed the Neil Gaiman Master Class too, and enjoyed it!

I guess I have been working hard after all (but not with blogging — shame, Luke!), even though there’s been far less writing than I like.

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…

---

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.

Leeth Dossier Q&A part 2

This continues on the Q&A I had with AndyK much earlier in the year. The topic this time covers perhaps a key aspect of the series.

Spoiler alert!

Again, note that because we discussed the first two books, this article contains spoilers if you haven't read them: in other words, it's only intended for people who have already read Wild Thing and Harsh Lessons.

(As a small aside, in Kesha’s powerful song Praying, most of the lyrics sound to me like they could have been written specifically for Leeth to throw in Harmon’s face.)

Harmon and Leeth's relationship

A: I really hope you let poor Leeth break out of Harmon's Mind Control. It's horrific to read what she has to endure. That's what most reviewers are bashing at as far as I can see. And I understand that. It's beyond dark.

L: Harmon and Leeth are certainly the main two drivers.

A: Well.. Leeth seems to be a package on the back seat for much of the journey. During book 2 she mainly reacts. Except the end of course. There the victim finally showed claws. :}

L: I think you're being just a little bit mean to Leeth: learning to be a "super spy" is her dream career, so she was very much in agreement with that development.

A: I know. But Harmon turned it into an abuse spree she can't possible want to be a part of. By the end of book two that showed. To some extent. Also having her trust broken so awfully should leave impressions on her. Would be reasonable if she might even develop trust issues after that.

L: It would have to happen a lot more: she is fundamentally trusting. She'd have to have her trust broken over and over again before she'd decide that was normal, rather than blaming the individuals who'd betrayed her trust.

A: Okay. That is consistent with how she reacts with people. Also makes her more "loveable" for the readers I guess. But will also make her the victim in a harsh world. Curious how that will develop in future books.

L: She'll learn and grow.  Quickly.

A: Were you really afraid you wouldn't get enough sympathy for Leeth from your readers? That's puzzling. If I ever felt a character deserved sympathy and compassion it's her.

L: I'm encouraged and very pleased you feel that way.  That's of course my own feeling, too.  But I know some others don't feel the same way: they say so in their reviews. Even some of the people who liked the book found Leeth hard to like.  And of course the 1-star reviewers found both her and Harmon to be monsters. I found it uplifting to see her survive and defeat the odds against her.  But my perception is very much within the context of what I see developing in the future.  So your comment makes excellent sense to me.

A: Sure.. you see the story and characters in a holistic sense. I as a reader can only see what you presented so far.

L: It is a deep trap she's in.  In fact, she's trapped in several different ways.  Working her way to her best self will take a while.

A: I feared you would say that.

L: At least it suggests the situation and characters will be rich enough to sustain a lot of things to write about!

A: Come to think of it: There are two things towards the end of book two that I don't really get:

1) Leeth wants to actually kill him when he tries to set her to Zombie mode. She fails because of the compulsions. And then says she is sorry for knocking him out!? Why? After she admitted to herself she is controlled by a monster? That "Keepie is gone"?

2) Harmon making plans about after they got away from the Department. What a "great team they would be". Is he really so delusional at that point that he doesn't see where he pushed Leeth to?

L: Great questions!

1) She's still coming to terms with her new knowledge.  She's not certain that giving up on "Keepie" was the right thing to do: she can't help wondering if doing that helped kill the "Keepie" side of him. She wonders if she'd tried harder, could she have brought him back?

Partly, at that moment, she was tired: feeling she should have said more, done more.

Partly, too, she felt it would feel satisfying to appear polite while knocking him unconscious — just a touch of sarcasm in her words — though staring down at him afterwards, it instead reinforced her feeling she'd abandoned "Keepie".

2) I feel that if Harmon completely reformed, and was genuinely remorseful, in time Leeth would forgive him: she's that desperate for love. She desperately wants to be needed, or even wanted.  Harmon, knowing that, knows it could be used, merely psychologically, but also (he would believe) he could use his magic to block some memories and implant more compulsions and ideas.  He believes he could manipulate her that way, through varying means that range from truly despicable and evil (the easy way, for him) to good (though that would require spiritual pain and a lot of emotional growth on his part, which he is not very open to).

On top of that, he genuinely admires her, and respects her, and knows he could give her opportunities to express herself that she would relish.

A: Yet he never showed her that, did he? That he admires her or even respects her?

L: A few times he did, yes.  Not often.  But there are probably ten or twenty instances in the books; and Leeth could list them all: because each one, each tiny crumb, meant so much to her.  Harmon himself would probably be surprised by the length of the list.

He knows he could give her opportunities to express herself that she would relish.

A: Again, did he tell her that? In book 2 I mean? Instead he did something that truly destroyed every bit of trust she had left for him.

L: In book 2?  There were far fewer instances; though given it spans only a few months, perhaps the frequency didn't change much.
A: Which again, as a psychiatrist, he should have realized right then, that there is enough to control her right there in her emotional attachment. "Come on girl. This is important. Do it for me. For us."

L: But if he took that approach, she would feel it only fair to be able to use the same argument, and that's not something he wants to allow. It would be a two-edged sword. And he himself wants to suffer no cuts.

A: Well, without some form of control for her or choice for her it was always destined for contest, rebellion, controversy and finally animosity.

L: We as readers can see that.  Even Harmon, too, probably.  But partly, he's not (yet) been honest enough with himself to admit that he cares; but mainly, he believes the experiment is more important than his or Leeth's happiness.

A: So you developed Leeth's character beautifully along those lines. Which makes perfect sense in this environment.

L: So I don't think he's being entirely delusional.  He is, however, seeing a rosier picture than is likely, given their personalities and how the two of them interact.

A: [Re 1:] But after he programmed her and used that trigger she did realize he betrayed her trust, right? Then he started to torture her and humiliate her in public (which she obviously abhors more than the pain). So her realization that there is only a monster left controlling her makes sense. "...and she had enough". I didn't see much doubt in her after that point?

L: True.  But she has had years of memories and shared history opposing that.  She can even pick out nice things he's done for her.  In her heart she knows she can't trust him.  I think that would be a hard truth for her to accept.  And she still wishes things weren't like that. Besides, sadly, in real life many women stay in abusive relationships for a whole range of complex reasons.

A: [Re 2:] Okay, I guess I could rationalize and understand such a development.
But there is not even the slightest hint that he even considers he might be in the wrong. And it's an even longer way to remorse from there.
And it shows she is desperate for emotional attachment. But she should also have realized she is more likely to find it anywhere else but Harmon.

L: If she were older, or wiser, yes, she should have.  She's trusting by nature, though.  Which I think makes his abuse worse. And she is reaching out: to James, Emma, Dojo, Eagle, Father….

"She desperately wants to be needed, or even wanted.  Harmon knows that could be used..."

A: But he never did! That's what I meant in my previous question:  he could have used an emotional bond to steer her. Even if the emotions are mostly "faked".

L: Yes, it would have made things easier for him, and worse for her, if he could have brought himself to do that.  But he can't bear to start down that path.  It's why he reacted so strongly against what he'd learned from that first mind probe in the Institute, when he felt her overwhelming need for love drawing at him: and "ran away" from it by terminating the spell.

A: But by the end of book 2 it's too late for that. Seriously, do you see an emotional bond between them that would allow them to reconnect? After everything he did? After she realized what he did? I can't.

L: Their relationship is deep, and badly messed up, and damaging them both: her much more than him.  So I do see it as a possibility, but it's not an end I'm steering towards.

Their relationship will continue to be important, and will continue to change and affect them both.

L: "he could use his magic to block some memories and implant more compulsions and ideas."

A: If he erases her memory all the time she can't actually learn and develop.

L: Agreed.  But he wouldn't erase it all.  But not erasing it all would likely leave loose ends that might then be probed at to find inconsistencies and cause problems...

A: And he already put so many compulsions on her she is becoming an automaton quickly. And it's doubtful she can actually work under that condition. She definitely won't progress and develop and he probably would have to admit the experiment failed.

L: I don't agree that she couldn't develop in those conditions; but I think he could easily end up in a situation where unless he has her tied up with compulsions and behaving like an automaton, she'd be too dangerous to him personally.

But again, that's not something the story is heading towards.

A: I am just still so puzzled about Harmon's short sightedness. But again, this is the makeup of an interesting character, too. A pretty fatal flaw. Just because someone has power doesn't mean he has wisdom. And he is a poster boy for that.
It's just puzzling he actually could keep the upper hand for so long. Considering the amount of mistakes he made.

L: The mistakes come mainly from his character flaws, and to a lesser extent to Eagle's very subtle manipulations in the background.

And yes, by the end of Book 2 Leeth realises she can't trust him.

A: Also I don't quite get how he supposed her personal development should progress if he so totally controls her. The only thing developing there can be resentment.

L: Her development would be stunted if he controlled her to that extent. But even he knows that.

More importantly, her development doesn't depend on him. So I don't think he's being entirely delusional.  He is, however, seeing a rosier picture than is likely, given the way the two of them interact.

A: Well...  it is consistent with his personality. I can't argue that :}

L: The point they've descended to in their relationship — what you're calling the fire — I see more as the two of them now being a long way down in a deep pit.  I see the changes coming more as an attempt to climb back out of the pit (for one or both), rather than as putting out a fire.

A: Okay, I'd say both are fitting metaphors. Leeth realizes she has to do "something". And he should realize by now he pushed her to that.

L: Yes.

L: If not for Marcie's situation, Leeth would have stayed, directly confronting Harmon, fighting the problem head on, until something catastrophic happened. If she had run away for herself, or run away just to escape Harmon, she would consider that a massive "loss of points" in their unacknowledged battle.

A: ???

He just switches her into Zombie mode and she has to do whatever she does not want to do. Obviously she wants to fight this torture and abuse. But it doesn't look like she has any chance there. It's what made his betrayal so monstrous after all. And why I can't see any productive way those two actually work together. You already described her breakdown. And her realizations that "Keepie is dead and she had enough"

Running away was the only reasonable choice I'd say.

L: I can see other options.  But none that Leeth would have seen, or could have carried out plausibly at that point.  She could have chosen to stay and endure it: but when I peer into that alternate future, I see disaster and blood.

I think the running away was a wise choice for her.

---

Again, I think that will do for now. The next Q&A topic: "Who is the most evil character in the series so far?"

Although before that I may write a quick article on updating your ebooks at Amazon, when you have post-publication corrections you want to make.

Stuffing things up

Well, this is a pretty embarrassing blog article to be writing, but it's an important public service announcement. I stuffed up.

Here's the executive summary of how it affects people who want to read Shadow Hunt (vol 3 in The Leeth Dossier): please wait an extra day before you start reading it. If you pre-ordered it, please wait for an email from Amazon telling you that a new version is available.

Here's why….

I made Shadow Hunt available for pre-order on Amazon (April 30^th, 2017), uploading the draft I had a month earlier (March 26th), while I was working through my editor's 2nd and final critique. (Or 3^rd, or 4^th, if you include the two earlier book splits!) I thought five weeks would give me a comfortable period — comfortable enough to even allow me to attend the sci-fi/fantasy convention SwanCon, in Perth, and spend a couple of days extra seeing the sights.

Which would have been all well and good if I hadn't made a couple of other errors. The first was not checking the details of when I needed to upload the final version of the book: I assumed the day before. In hindsight this was remarkably stupid, because naturally Amazon needs extra time to check the book carefully before launch. (In fact, they need 72 hours.) My second big mistake was a really stupid failure of basic arithmetic: 30 minus 3 = 27, not 28, right? Yeah, well my brain did the sum this way instead "Let's see: 30, 29, 28: that's three days. So, April 28 is the deadline."

Don't ask. Even I don't see how I could have made that error. Partly it was wishful thinking that the time counted from the end of April 30^th, not the start of the day! D'oh!

Maybe by this time I was getting tired, too, because my editing of vol 3 was taking longer than I had expected. Anyway, I completed all my edits and did my 1^st polish of the new parts, and then the 2^nd polish (a bit rushed, I admit), and sat down one hour before the deadline (I thought) to convert the book to Amazon's format and upload it. I finished that with ten minutes to spare (again: I thought) and then tried to upload. Bzzt: "locked for pre-order release checks."

Uh oh.

It was only then that I realised my stuff-up. I contacted Amazon, but there was nothing they could do: my choices were either to cancel the pre-order at the last minute (and thus prove I couldn't be trusted with the ability to manage a pre-order for a period of 12 months), or upload the revised version with the usual detailed description of changes, and request Amazon to push out an offer to all existing purchasers that a new version is available.

So I chose that 2^nd option. This means that the draft copy will only be there for a short period after the pre-order date (a day, I hope), and that people who pre-ordered will soon get the updated version.

The draft version that ‘escaped' can be distinguished from the final version in many ways:

At the end of the table of contents, the release version is noted as "pre-4" — not "1".

The Prologue is inside Part I — instead of coming just before it.

The book is 141,854 words long — not 149,450. (Yes, this is despite cutting about 10k words, too.)

The draft version has 79 chapters (+epilogue) — not 82 (+epilogue).

Something like 2,000 other changes, big and small. I won't enumerate them here, but one small example in the prologue is the changing of the sentence that begins "Yet thanks to it, no one would expect to find human remains" to "Yet thanks to it, with no bodies to be found".

I'm not going to mention any of the bigger changes, because they'd be spoilers, but for the 30 days or so following my upload of my late draft version to Amazon, I think I averaged about 9-10 hours per day working on improving the book. The changes were based on Dave's critique and some extra Q&A with him, an early beta read by a friend as those changes neared completion (thanks, Jon!), and feedback from two beta readers (Sandra, AndyK) to try to resolve a key point. So parts of the plot are strengthened, there are fewer errors and questionable parts (it all makes more sense), and is just generally vastly improved, thanks to all the feedback.

At this point I should also add that on one point, Dave and I couldn't agree (but neither of us were sure any more who was right). I also couldn't reach consensus by the beta readers. I vacillated for a while, but in the end, trusted my gut. So don't blame Dave if there's some thing (or things) about the book which you feel could have been improved: you've no doubt found a place where I didn't follow his advice!

Book 3 – Shadow Hunt – is almost ready

Still alive!

I've been silent so long (October last year!), because I've been working very hard on book three, so I thought I'd make the time to offer a short update.

When will it be published?

I wrote in the Afterword of Book 2 that I was confident I'd have Book 3 ready early in 2017. I've been trying very hard to publish the ebook by mid-March. Right now I'm getting some much-delayed other book-related work done while I wait to receive the detailed critique of the 2^nd half of Shadow Hunt from Dave at TheEditors.com — I should get that today or tomorrow. If I can manage to average 15pp/day then I'll have the updated draft ready about Feb 28. I'll then spend a week to 10 days checking and re-checking that, then upload it to Amazon. If I can manage 20pp/day, then it will be ready earlier, obviously.

I'm doing my best, and working very hard. I finished writing and polishing the draft and sent it to Dave at the end of 2016 (in two parts: 1^st half on Nov 28^th, and the 2^nd half on Dec 3^rd).

Shadow Hunt cover

Mirella, too, has been hard at work on the cover design, working from a brief I prepared last year. This image, below, is not final, and maybe I shouldn't include it... but I just can't resist giving you a sneak peek, even though it's not quite finished. (It will change just a little, but I love it already!)

(You can see the final cover over on my other blog.)

Some nitty-gritty

Dave's critique has been invaluable, as ever. We spent some time discussing his key recommendations at a high level, and I sketched out a plan, and then sat down and worked my way through chapter by chapter. I also received very helpful feedback from Jon Marshall (again!) as a beta reader of the same MS, and he found several important problems and oversights (fortunately, none hard to correct).

Incidentally, the reason for breaking the critique in two was purely a time-saving method: I could get started on the first half while Dave continued on the second half. This was only possible because he'd sort of already critiqued the whole thing twice before, because the MS has been split in two twice from Dave's feedback (that's not counting once, before, based on my own assessment). A side benefit of splitting it in two is also purely mechanical: the powerful, free word processor I use, LibreOffice, becomes unusable when the number of comments in a file exceeds about 1,500. (It must have what's called an order N² algorithm in its handling of comments, which is a fancy way of saying the time it takes to do anything rises as sharply as the up-sweeping arm of a parabola!) As it stands, before I start deleting comments, LibreOffice takes about 15 — 20 seconds just to respond to a menu click. I've added to the problem report (bug 60418), and it's on their list of things to consider. But it's not considered a big problem.

ISBNs & CiP

Today I logged in to Thorpe-Bowker to assign ISBNs to the ebook and the print edition. Armed with the correct ISBNs, I then visited the National Library of Australia website to request a Cataloguing in Publication entry for three editions of Shadow Hunt (the ebook, the 5"x8" edition, and the 4"x7"). But again, all three 4"x7" editions are on hold until I can find a workaround for another bug in LibreOffice, that messes up the page headers. (Bug 103078)

About Vol. 3

Shadow Hunt is currently a little longer than the 1^st, Wild Thing, though Dave is recommending I cut 30 pages from one 100-page stretch. If I manage to do that, it's shaping up to be the same length as Wild Thing. I'm very happy with how the book turned out (is turning out?).

April plans

I'm also planning to attend the SwanCon this year (I've never visited Perth)! It's billed as "Australia’s longest running Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction Convention".

My next blog posts here will probably cover these topics:

• Break up that indigestible previous blog that covered too much in too much detail
• a quick intro to Scribus for preparing your book covers, given a brilliant cover design as your starting point
• setting up your Youtube author channel (mine is here)
• a rant about the new publishing world.

Over on my other blog, All About Leeth, I plan to post a Q&A from a fan (yes — I have a fan!) about the series, and especially about Harmon and Leeth's relationship.

I think that covers thing. Now to press on with some other work — like finalising the blurb, and more polishing of the new parts I've written over the last few weeks. I'm doing my best!

Even briefer status report - published!

This is going to be ultra brief...

I didn't manage to meet my deadline of 11th December, but I did manage to publish it four days later. As of I think Wed Dec 15th, it's been available on Amazon. Probably the best link to give is this slightly indirect one, via my Amazon author page L. J. Kendall. So, Wild Thing, Book 1 in The Leeth Dossier, is now available as an ebook. It's a sci-fi/fantasy novel.

In a nutshell, it's set about 40 years in the future, 10 years after magic has returned to the world. A magical researcher acquires a young girl to test his theory about how to develop magical abilities in someone. But things don't go at all according to plan.

You'll see that for the cover I decided on the serene dog and the translucent monster - because they make more sense in the story context; and since I'm self-publishing, I can't claim "Oh, the Marketing Department chose that, don't blame me."

I also approved the electronic proofs for the first of the print editions (the 5"x8" paperback) on Dec 31st, with IngramSpark.

And I have the draft of a 20-page blog article on what was involved just on the ebook production side: which is too long and needs to be tightened up (soon) to post here; followed of course by a blog about the print book production.

The paperback publication date is set at Jan 21st (2016), and I'm about to investigate the possibility of having a small book launch at the end of January.

I still need to make a proper announcement about the book release. I don't think this little status report cuts the mustard. :-)

Oh, and I see that Amazon now also lists the paperback edition as being available for pre-order; and so too does the wonderful Book Depository - how cool is that? :-) I think it's still settling in at Booktopia: when I 1st spotted it, it had no cover image available; later, it disappeared entirely; now, it's back again, but not marked as available for pre-order (as it was, when I first noticed it there); and right now, if you click on the link they give for my name, it says "Sorry, no matches". So I think I'm still "settling in" to Booktopia's database.

Anyway, I now have three reviews, two thanks to the writers at Amorina Rose - Barbara's one is here and Kay's is here, and one thanks to Aly at Riley Westbrook's blog. And all three reviews are at Amazon, too.

I've also learned that Amazon doesn't make the new versions of your book available to readers who have already purchased it, unless the author contacts them with a reasonably detailed list of the changes made, to decide whether they should allow readers to request an update. Their stated reason for doing so is "customers may lose their highlights, last page read, bookmarks, and notes when they download updates"; and say they are investigating how to address that.

But that doesn't explain why a reader shouldn't be allowed to choose to download an updated version when they wish - you could imagine a "You may lose your highlights, bookmarks, and annotations when you update - are you sure?" question to make that crystal clear.

I suspect the real reason is to protect Amazon customers from the small (tiny?) percentage of authors who might play games of some form - e.g. removing a critical part to sell separately. But if that's the reason, those acts to me sound like cheating at best, and criminal at worst. IMHO, a much better approach would be for Amazon to investigate complaints and then come down on such cheats like the proverbial ton of bricks if they found the author had cheated. Surely, the vast majority of updates would be improvements; and the large majority of readers would want to be able to request the update if they chose to?

I have to admit I don't really understand why Amazon has chosen to disallow updates by default!