Tag: author blog

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Fantasy Maps Made Easy

So many readers love a good map to accompany their books, and for good reason. It’s a nice little extra bit of world building and helps to orient a person in a fictional world.

But unless you’re extremely familiar with graphic design, making the map yourself could prove difficult. Hiring the work out could prove expensive (as it should, graphic design work require time, effort, and a lot of practice).

But there are a couple alternatives that allow you to make your own map and (for a reasonable price) use them for commercial purposes, i.e. in a book. If you’re making a map for a non-commercial purpose (a personal Dungeons & Dragons campaign with friends, perhaps), I’m not sure the same fees would apply.

So, without further adieu, the map making resources you came here for.

Inkarnate

This lovely website lets you build a custom map from the ground up. Well, from the sea bed up, because at the start, it’s all water.

You start out by selecting the overall feel you want the map to have, be it parchment or watercolor. You also choose whether it’s a battle map, regional map, or world map.

Then, you start shaping continents with a tool that raises land up out of the water. You can adjust the edges of that tool to be smooth or rough (for more realistic coastlines). You can sink areas back down to make lakes. There’s a separate tool for drawing paths, which could be used for thin snaking rivers or trade routes or whatever you want.

With the geography roughed out, you can choose from a bunch of “Stamp” options. These are used for the compass and scale, banners and bridges, towns and buildings, mountains and trees, even mythical creatures.

There’s a pretty wide assortment, so you’ll just have to play around and find the ones you like the best. It automatically defaults to the ones that match the style you chose for your map, but you can change the filters and select from any stamps, regardless of style.

There’s also an option to add text (with the option to curve it to fit banners) and brushes for different textures and colors. It has some trial and error involved for sure, but once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty fun.

And you can come out the other side with some amazing maps.

The cost to use the maps for commercial use?

$25 a year or $5 a month.

Here’s the official terms of service if you want to read them. Don’t worry, it’s only 8 pages or reasonably sized text.

Azgaar’s Fantasy Map Generator

As you may have guessed from the word “generator” in the link above, this one makes a complete, randomized world for you. Of course, you can change it, altering altitudes and coastlines to fit what you have in mind for your world if you don’t like a few parts of the random map. Or you can generate a new one altogether.

One of the really cool things about this one is that it’s really in depth. It populates the world for you, throwing in a variety of cultures (derived from real world influences as well as existing fictional races), countries, political factions, religions, trade routes, etc.

It accounts for precipitation based on topography, temperature based on a country’s position on the globe. It even has a layer option to show military forces.

And if you click on the cities, it pulls up a small map of the city streets.

All the various layers and options are available for you to tweak if you click the little bitty triangle in the top left of the screen.

Now, since I’ve only discovered this map generator recently, I’m by no means an expert in what can be done with it. But I can see its potential, and there are a multitude of tutorials on YouTube to help you get the most out of it.

Cost for commercial licensing?

Judging by the reply the creator left for a Redditor, all they ask is that you mention that you used their generator.

Which is astonishing and unbelievably cool of them.

The license itself is linked in that post, but if you’d rather skip straight to the license (which says free) here it is. They even made that simple. It’s less than one page.

Subscribe for sneak peeks and updates on my upcoming books (and get a free short story).

Check out my gritty, literary sci-fi and fantasy books here.

Find me on Goodreads.

Want to help fund this blog and my writing efforts? You can support me directly here.

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Artbreeder Tutorial for Authors: A Crash Course

Artbreeder is one of those amazing websites that has the potential for truly wonderful things (portraits, landscapes, anime, buildings, paintings, etc.). Or… images that seethe with existential horror.

And depending on your needs, either of those could be perfect.

The latter seems easier to make by accident, so today, I’ll be covering the nicer looking images.

So, let’s start at the beginning.

Artbreeder is basically a place for people to smash pictures together, edit the individual components (aka genes), or use their “Children” feature to get similar pictures, all with a few clicks.

Copyrights for the images created on the site belong to the individual user, since the user created those images through a series of personal creative choices, though they’re also public domain. (Here’s the official terms and services. Don’t worry, it’s surprisingly concise at a mere 4 pages with reasonably-sized text.)

I use it primarily for headshots for my book characters (which is what I’ll be doing in this little tutorial of sorts), though the basics apply across the site.

As you can see above, the things you see on this site will run the gamut. That’s just the main screen when I visited, and it will likely be different when you visit.

Now, up at the top of that image, there are two choices. Images and Genes. You can click either one, or at the top right of the screen (not in the picture) there are the options to Create or Browse.

I usually sift through images to find a hairstyle close to what I want. (There are more options for tweaking facial features than for hairstyles.)

Today, I’ll be making Jake, one of the characters from my NaNoWriMo Project (The Monsters that H(a)unt Us), as I walk you through this.

So, go ahead and pick a character and find a picture that gets close, even if only in the hairstyle. Or if you’d like to just wing it for this first experiment, pick a random image that you like and maybe this will inspire a story about the person you create.

Jake tends to sweep his sandy hair to one side, so here’s the image I’m starting with:

Below are options that other people have made from that image. Off to the right are the options Edit-Genes, Children, or Cross-Breed. I’m going to start off with the Children option, as shown in the picture.

The site’s Morphogen algorithm makes new randomized versions of that image for you, and gives you an automatic separation from the original image. You have a little bar below the three auto-generated options to select how similar you want the children to be to the parent.

But if you like one of the kids, you should click it. Once you hit the little refresh button (right below the bar for similar/different), the kids that were on screen disappear. If you click them, they appear in your profile under images you created.

So, I chose my favorite child, as seen here:

But he still wasn’t quite right for dear old Jake. So, I clicked on Crossbreed, clicked search, and typed in blond (I left the ‘e’ off because he’s a he, and the ‘e’ is typically for women, and I wasn’t sure if that would matter).

The guy on the far right is the one I decided to cross breed with.

With this lovely picture to smash together with the favorite child, I actually got something I like right off the bat (the far left). But there are slider-bars beneath the two images on the right to choose which image you want the new one to take after (face structure and art style).

Since I’m pretty happy with my turnout, I’m going to move to Edit-Genes, but you feel free to move those little slider bars to your heart’s content. Just be sure to click Save (below the slider bars) if you like the image on the left (so it doesn’t disappear). Once saved, it’ll show up at the bottom, as well as on your profile under “Created” so you can come back to it later.

Now, I’ve saved and clicked my new image, and I’m ready to edit some genes. This is where the finesse comes in (or the existential horror).

As you can see, there are a lot of options.

Gene Explanations:

I haven’t quite figured out the Chaos gene, which makes sense. Chaos is, well, chaos. It doesn’t make much sense to me.

But other genes available to edit are a little more intuitive. Age and Gender do exactly as they say. Width makes for a wider or narrower face, where Height lengthens or shortens their head. Yaw adjust whether they’re turned one direction or the other. Pitch is whether they’re tipping their head back or down.

Then, there are the various race options. These adjust bone structure, hair color/type, skin tone, eye color, etc.

Art affects the realism of the image. Less means it looks more like a photo. More art means it looks like graphic art.

Then, there are color options, if you want to add more of a general shade. Hue runs through a slider bar rainbow, casting a filter over the entire image.

After that, there’s Saturation (low means a black and white image, high means a very very brightly saturated image), Brightness (to lighten or darken the image), and Sharpness (blurry or super crisp).

Happy (adjusting squint of eyes and the creases at the corners of the mouth) and Angry (adjusting the furrow of brows and the set of the mouth) come next.

Then, Blue Eyes and Earrings, both of which would be tricky to get without these little options.

Eyes Open and Mouth Open come in handy when making a character happy. The happy adjustment usually closes the eyes and doesn’t always look right with a closed mouth. So, anytime I make a character happy, I adjust these two things as well, as evidenced here:

Just Happy….
Happy with eyes and mouth adjusted… Doesn’t that look more genuine?

Then, there are options for hair color (Black, Blonde, or Brown) as well as Makeup, Glasses, Facial Hair, and Hat.

Below all of these, there’s an option to Add Genes, and let me tell you, those genes get wild. There are options for Orcs, Vampires, Forest Creatures, Cyber Noir, Sad, Gene Combo Sixty Nine, and something called “Brown to Fish,” as well as many others to play with.

But Jake is a human, so I’m not adding those to him.

Now, I adjusted his gender a tad to the right to get a bit more ruggedness, and his age down just a bit to get him closer to 26. Then, I added just a touch of facial hair, and I got this:

Note the very minor adjustments. -0.07 (age), 0.2 (gender), and 0.116 (facial hair), as well as 0.172 to get his hair a little lighter.

And I have to say, I’m pretty happy with how he turned out.

Caution with the Genes.

My two biggest pieces of advice to you are to be cautious and save often.

Move slowly when making adjustments on those genes. A little change can have a big impact on far more than just the single aspect you want to change. (For instance, Pitch and Yaw can completely change facial structure. Morphogen seems to have some difficulty with the perspective change.)

Hat and Earrings can have some… interesting effects, too. Hat at -2 does this:

Whereas Hat at 2 does this:

I don’t know why.

But as long as you save your product often, you can always come back to it if you want to start over, and each gene has a little refresh button by it to move it right back to 0 with a single click.

Oh, and beware of using this site on your phone. The slider bars are very sensitive and sometimes the different genes overlap on phones, resulting in unintentional changes.

Play around a bit.

This site has a learning curve, but it’s worth it in the end. You just have to give yourself permission to play around a bit. There will be some absolute monstrosities along the way, but that’s part of the fun sometimes.

And as long as you save often, you can always go back.

Find me on Goodreads.

Subscribe for sneak peeks and updates on my upcoming books (and get a free short story).

Check out my gritty, literary sci-fi and fantasy books here.

Want to help fund this blog and my writing efforts? You can support me directly here.

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Self-Publishing Resources That Have Helped Me Out

There are a lot of steps involved in self-publishing. And I mean a lot. From searching the internet for good keywords to making pretty pictures of your book to post on social media, there’s a lot to do.

But there are also a lot of awesome resources at our disposal.

The trouble is, they’re hidden in all the garbage floating around online.

So, today, I wanted to give you a list of resources I’ve discovered in the past year that have really simplified things for me.

Some of these things are free. Some are not. But now that I have them, I can’t imagine not having them and having to do all this stuff by hand.

Category Finder

Figuring out what categories to put your book into can be an absolute nightmare. But there’s an awesome tool that finds all the categories a comparable bestseller in your genre is in so that you can use those categories.

Just go here.

Then, in a new tab or window, go to Amazon and get the ASIN or ISBN-10 of a book similar to yours that ranks in the top 100 in your genre.

Paste that number into the site above and let it work its magic.

And by the way, if you didn’t know (because I didn’t until this year), if your book is published through KDP, you can contact their support team and have them add your book to more categories. They allow two in the setup phase, but you can add an additional eight!

KDP Rocket/Publisher Rocket

This one’s useful for a lot of reasons, though the primary thing I use it for is finding keywords for my books. If you type in a keyword you think might be good, it does some tech magic and finds a bunch of stats for that keyword, as well as any similar keyword that’s been entered into Amazon.

It tells you: how many times that keyword is entered into Amazon and Google per month, how much the books with that keyword average in sales per month, how many books use that keyword, how competitive it is, and a few other things.

A recent update even color codes those stats to show you at a glance whether or not those stats are in a good range.

This one is not free, but it makes keywords so easy that I think it’s worth the $97 (USD) price tag.

Instant Data Scraper Plug-In

This little tool put Goodreads to work for you. You just find a list on Goodreads that has books similar to yours, give this plug-in the requisite link, and let it extract the information. With a little work in Excel to clean them up, you’ll end up with a bunch of book titles to target in ads.

Mock Up Shots

This site charges $198 for lifetime access, but gives you tons of professional mockups for your book. Just upload the cover and download as many of them as you want for as many books as you want mockups for.

Book Report Plug-In

KDP has a decent sales reporting system, at least compared to Ingramspark. But this plug-in shows you a more comprehensive view of your royalties, even breaking it down by individual books. Which is pretty helpful if you’re running a sale or an ad and want to know if a specific book or series is selling.

It’s easy to set up and use. Somehow, it reports sales that might not show up in KDP’s sales reports.

It only works for KDP books though. If it was published through any other publisher, the sales won’t show up on Book Report.

Check out my gritty, literary sci-fi and fantasy books here.

Want to help fund this blog and my writing efforts? You can support me directly here.

Subscribe for sneak peeks and updates on my upcoming books (and get a free short story).

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3 Reasons Why Writers Should Never Stop Learning

Learning new things is important. It seems like such a simple thing to say, but it isn’t something we always prioritize.

So many people stop challenging themselves, stop learning new things. They get comfortable and think themselves exempt from continuing to learn and improve. And that’s a good way to stagnate.

And as writers, it’s especially important to keep learning because…

You never know what you might need to know.

Writing is a strange process in that any piece of information could come in handy at some point.

Your first book might require knowledge on the healing process from a stab wound to the gut or how long someone could live without water. Your next might require learning how bears show affection or what appliances were common in turn of the century kitchens. Another might require knowledge of food storage that requires no electricity, how to make candles, or even the exact speed of light.

Depending on the book and the characters (their hobbies, their jobs, their interests), there’s no limit to what you could conceivably need to learn.

(Btw, all of the things listed above are things I’ve either researched for a book or knew ahead of time and used in a book.)

You can never know everything.

There’s just so much to learn. Every new thing you learn can potentially open up more questions.

Which could provide perspective for your book or potentially inspire another.

People who don’t think they need to keep learning just aren’t aware of how much they don’t know.

It turns out that people who think they know everything and have nothing more to learn… really know very little. They haven’t learned enough to see what they’ve done wrong and thus think themselves the best.

And no one wants to be that person.

So, keep learning.

Keep improving.

Because if you stagnate, your books might.

Want to fund this blog and my writing efforts? You can support me directly here.

Check out my gritty, literary sci-fi and fantasy books here.

Subscribe for sneak peeks and updates on my upcoming books (and get a free short story).

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Write as weird as you want.

Sometimes, our ideas carry us away. That’s why we do this, right?

But other times, we let doubt get in the way.

When writing fantasy and science fiction, we question whether or not we can expect people to believe something, whether it’s realistic. All these strange and fantastical things in our heads just seem too big, too different.

But it’s fantasy. It’s science fiction.

Anything can be realistic if you make the world support it.

And honestly, there are some truly weird things in our world that people don’t question, or maybe barely question. (Vulture bees making honey from meat. People keeping the baby teeth of their children.)

Anything can be realistic for a fictional world if you shape the world to make it work. The history of these fictional worlds can support any tradition. The evolution of these worlds can produce any species we want.

The believability of an idea isn’t the problem.

The real problem is deeper.

We question ourselves and our ability to pull these things off.

We’re making up entire worlds, entire people, entire timelines. We’re doing things that are truly amazing.

A planet with rivers that flow up into the air may as well happen. Maybe it’s a hollow planet, and those rivers are inside it? Maybe there’s a gravitational anomaly caused by a malfunction in a lab? Who knows? You just have to put in the time and the effort to explain it. And then stand by it.

What we’re doing is meant to be fun, but that doesn’t always mean it’ll be easy.

And sometimes, we’re the ones making it harder for ourselves. We doubt our ideas at every turn, cutting ourselves off at the knees.

Stop worrying about whether it’s realistic to have an animal the size of a whale fly through the sky. In our world, no. But in your world? In the world you’re building?

Go for it.

Give it some sort of mechanical support or engine. Enhance it with magic.

Make it work.

That thing you have in your head that you’re doubting might be the thing that a reader loves the most about your book.

Just build the supports for it into the framework of the world and have a little faith in yourself.

Want to fund this blog and my writing efforts? You can support me directly here.

Check out my gritty, literary sci-fi and fantasy books here.

Subscribe for sneak peeks and updates on my upcoming books (and get a free short story).

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Pantser Vs. Plotter: A Guide for New Writers

Last week, we covered the pros of plotting and the cons of pantsing a novel. And I’ll be honest, it hurt a little to be so negative about my own writing method. But this is going to make up for it.

This week, I get to sing the praises of writing like a pantser (aka a discovery writer).

So, let’s dive in.

1. The story progresses at the exact pace it needs to.

If you write an outline and then start writing, strictly adhering to the outline, things may not happen when the characters and plot would actually get to them.

You may have a moment where a character figures something out that’s meant to be a eureka moment, but your reader figured it out seven chapters ago and has been wondering why the MC is so blind. Or you might have your character piece things together too quickly, completely blindsiding your reader.

As a pantser, revelations and developments come about naturally, thus evolving at the exact moment the story needs them to happen.

2. Characters can develop at the exact pace they need to.

Following an outline too closely can rush or drag out character development, just as much as it can hinder or expedite plot lines, leaving readers wondering why a character changed so quickly or why they seemed to stagnate for half the book.

As a pantser, the characters grow and change naturally, coping with the events of the story as they happen or driving the plot forward with their developments.

3. Authentic, realistic characters

Now, this is not to say that plotters can’t write realistic characters. They 100% can. It just takes more work ahead of time. By this, I mean character bibles or personality tests taken as the character or extensive mood boards or notes galore.

But when writing, it isn’t uncommon for pantsers to let the characters take the reins.

Which means those characters have to be whole people in the author’s mind in order to make these decisions and act/react in ways that line up with their personalities. They’re just there, like old friends whispering secrets and showing us the way.

4. The story can be changed as it needs to.

Sometimes, as you write, you realize that something just doesn’t work. Maybe you learn something new that reveals a piece of your book to be incorrect or implausible to such a degree that it might ruin the immersion.

Pantsers are accustomed to changing the story as is necessary to ensure plausibility, continuity, and entertainment.

In a situation like this, plotters who choose to stick too closely to their outline could endanger the viability of their story by refusing to change things.

5. Exploration

Pantsers get to experience the story for the first time as they write it, providing a sensation akin to reading. Writing this way means that you still get all the excitement and mystery of creation as the scenes unfold on the page. The writing process is punctuated with epiphany moments where things just fall into place.

Plotters can do that during the outline process, sure.

But epiphanies mid-writing session can really spur you on, and if they happen while away from writing, they can get you genuinely hyped up to get back to writing.

Now, I am biased toward the panster/discovery writer end of the spectrum, as I’ve mentioned that this is my preferred method. But that does not, in any way, mean it’s the only way.

For those of you just coming into this, last week’s blog was dedicated to the pros of plotting and the cons of pantsing.

Check that out here for more information.

Be sure to come back next Monday to learn about the writing method that most writers flourish with.

They’re the Plantsers.

And don’t forget to subscribe for a free short story, as well as exclusive content, sneak peeks at covers, and all the details on my upcoming book releases and giveaways.

Most importantly…

Keep reading. Keep writing.

Later.

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Writing with Tropes: 4 tips to help you do it well

Hi, guys!

So, there are these things in literature called tropes. Basically, tropes are themes or character types that pop up over and over in a lot of books. The hero’s journey or forbidden love, the jock or the hardass or the air headed pretty girl.

Or the smart pretty girl that doesn’t realize she’s pretty even though literally every one she meets falls in love with her and wants to get into her pants. That one seems to be increasingly popular, of late.

Tropes are everywhere, and they’re pretty hard to avoid.

And tropes aren’t bad, in and of themselves. If you’re not sure where to begin, they can provide a jumping off point.

But relying on them to heavily can prove disastrous for a book.

It breeds boring, two-dimensional characters and insanely predictable books.

If every character is a well-known stereotype and the story itself is a formula story, then there’s no real depth to draw a reader in and make them wonder what might happen.

Because they already know.

Because they’ve read that exact story with those exact characters a million different times.

Or worse, the cheesiness of all the over-the-top tropes could just become too much, ruining what might otherwise be a real edge-of-your-seat page turner.

You might think, “Well, I’ll just be completely original and not use a single trope.”

To which, I say…good luck. There’s bound to be some sort of trope in there somewhere.

There are literal tons of them.

Orphan finds out they’re magical, marriage of convenience, whirlwind billionaire romance, elderly mentor, secret heir, magical object to save the world, love triangle, the list goes on.

Plus, when you’re busy striving for originality, you get stuck thinking of what’s already been done (trying to avoid it) rather than just writing and letting your voice make whatever you write an original.

Which brings me to the first way to avoid over-troping your book.

Find your voice.

Every author has a signature style, a way of writing that is uniquely them.

It’s a mixture of the types of stories they tell, the words they choose, the aesthetic they tend to go for, the level of detail they strive for, the tense and the POV they write in, and many other things.

And if you really develop your voice as an author, you can write the tropiest tropes that ever troped, and still make something original.

Because it’s been spun in your unique voice.

The second way to avoid accidentally trashing your book with tons of blatant tropes is to study psychology.

Getting a better grasp on how people think (and what might have lead them to think that way) will inform your writing and deepen your character development.

You don’t have to get a degree. (I did, but not with the intention of using it for writing. I intended to become a therapist, at the time.)

But do some research into personality development and the effects of trauma or various disorders. Maybe buy a used psychology textbook online or take a class at a community college.

Third, study sociology and history. Again, no degree necessary, but do some research, watch some documentaries, read some books.

Learning how empires rise and fall, seeing how precarious some societies really are, and how small problems can topple mighty countries might show you something that you could use in a rebellion in your book. Or it might show you what it takes to rebuild afterward.

Tropes for the story line (star-crossed lovers, make-over, villain decay, the chosen one, etc.) are usually okay because there’s so much going on within and around them that it mixes it up. Just try not to draw attention to the fact that it’s there (let the readers analyze/enjoy the story without you saying hey look what I did here), and don’t throw too many of them into one story.

And last but not least, ask yourself these simple questions. (And answer honestly. The success of your book depends on you being honest with yourself about what it contains.)

Is there more to this character than the trope they spawned from? If the answer is no, you need to workshop that character and develop their personality.

Are all of my characters directly linked to a trope? If the answer is yes, you might need to mix it up. There should be at least a few characters that don’t spawn from a trope.

Get a second opinion, if you aren’t sure. Ask them to read it with this in mind. If you’ve developed your characters well enough beyond their trope spawn point, you could pull it off beautifully. But there’s the risk of making your book cheesy if all your characters are tropes.

And no one wants that.

Now, go forth and write deeply developed characters and plot lines.

Keep reading. Keep writing.

Later.

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Project Updates

Hi, guys!

I have been super busy, and just now realized that it’s been a few weeks since I gave you any sort of real update on my writing progress, a situation which must be rectified.

Especially since the only project I haven’t worked on in some way, shape, or form here recently, is Where Darkness Leads.

Now, if you’ve been following along on social media, you already know that I set a goal to finish my thriller novella this month, and I definitely accomplished that.

My guesstimate for the word count that I’d need in order to finish it was way off, so I’ll be editing it to finish the word count goal on the nanaowrimo website.

Adjustments have been made for some beta reader feedback within the depths of Allmother Rising. It’s still being perused by several beta readers, so I’ll have more changes to make before jumping into another round of edits.

I’ve finished the reread of The Regonia Chronicles, and all week, I’ve been covering my arm in notes while at work. I shared a video of what my arm looked like after one work day with particularly talkative characters on twitter.

Check it out here: www.twitter.com/bell_elexis

But beware, my handwriting is atrocious. I don’t think you’ll glean much insight into the story from that video. Lol. (I even had to skip a word and figure out what it said by using context clues… And I wrote it. Lol. )

Anyway, this story is fucking ready to be written, and I’m pumped.

All the twists and turns are screaming to be put to paper (or screen).

And I’m fucking here for it.

There are a couple of adjustments that need made to book one to accommodate the timing of a couple things in book two, but I already know what to do with them. And since I have the next two days off work, I intend to make some serious progress.

Now, I’ve also been devouring audiobooks, lately.

And of course, I’ve been hard at work on release prep for A Heart of Salt & Silver. I’ve been designing some book merch. The formatting is done. The cover is set to be revealed THIS FREAKING TUESDAY!

It’ll be featured on a lot of book blogs, so if you’re looking for some new book bloggers to follow, I’ll show you where to look.

I’ll be setting the book up for pre-order this week, so I’ll be sure to let you all know when it’s available. Don’t forget to subscribe to make sure you know as soon as it’s up.

Keep reading. Keep writing.

Later.