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Category: writers

  • Why Fantasy? Why The Last Families?

    When I started writing several years ago, it took me sometime to decide which was the genre that worked for me the best. I started with thrillers, thinking that it would be difficult to create a fantasy or science fiction world. I love reading thrillers, that can’t be questioned, but I also love reading other genres like fantasy.

    I thought that developing characters and a story in a world that already existed would work for me better as a beginner writer. But setting a story in a current world is not easy. You still have to do research, know the place where it will take place, research about the people in this place, the language they use, etc. After a first manuscript that didn’t work well, I realized that I wasn’t that good at establishing a current environment, so I thought I would give it a try with fantasy.

    But would I be imaginative enough to figure out a whole fictional world? Would I have the words and imagination for world building, aside from character building? I didn’t know. I doubted myself a lot, but I still started with a story that I had a long time in mind.

    When I started writing “The Last Families”, I gave it a simple title “New World”. It was because I was writing about a new world and thought it would be better to name it like that than simply “Manuscript”. I started describing those fantasy landscapes that I had imagined before. It wasn’t that bad and I enjoyed the process. Some time later (a couple of years) here I’m with my first fantasy novel.

    I’m not sure if fantasy is all I’m ever going to write but my next story is still in this genre. There is a mix of science fiction in some parts of The last Families and I’ll probably explore this genre a bit more in the future. Right now, I’m happy that I get to explore my imagination much better than when I was trying to adapt my stories to an existing world just because of writing comfort. I feel better challenging myself.

    THE LAST FAMILIES WEBSITE

  • Underlying topics in “The Last Families”

    The fact that a story has fantasy in it doesn’t mean that its whole world is made up and not related to current topics related to our own world. But if it wasn’t because I had to write a pitch, a synopsis, and disclaimers for this book, I wouldn’t have thought of the harsh underlying topics in the story:

    • End of the world /post-apocalyptic. Even though The Last Families happens in a fictional world, there is a background and time to the story. African, the last continent left on Earth, refers to a world that is far in the future, after the other continents have become lost somehow. The Last Families characters are still escaping from this last continent that is now facing its destruction.
    • Skin color/race as a factor to survive – Without going too much into details and telling part of the story here, the new place where the families have arrived, Gambir, has extreme circumstances that make that some people with certain skin color have better chances to survive.
    • Superiority of some families – Some families, like the Ninfires, believe they are superior than others. The idea of a group of people superior to other is still current relevant issue, no matter in which country we are located.
    • Misogyny – This is of course a characteristic that belongs to a villain, Ian, and even though this is a fictional world, unfortunately it can still be present.

    There are still other harsh topics in “The Last Families” but that are better discovered during the story. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the story is only dark, it is also a story of love, leadership, tolerance, sacrifice and compassion.

    The last families website

    Coming soon!

  • The Last Families Website

    When I started working on my launch plan, the website was a no brainer. That is the only thing that I would be able to pull it out myself without hiring somebody else. I’m happy to admit that I really enjoyed the process and the website is ready.

    check The Last families’ website

    For any other authors out there that might be seeking into setting up a website for their book, and you are not sure what content to include, after doing some research, this is the content that I included:

    • A Homepage that summarizes most of the website’s content, from the book’s release info, author, contact form, etc. The idea is that most people won’t navigate further than the homepage and won’t even click the navigation menus.
    • An About the Author page. This is a must in a book’s website. I included a short bio- the same that is placed in the back of the book’s cover. I have the belief that it has to include a good picture, people could want to meet/see the author.
    • A link to the Author’s blog, that means to this blog. I don’t think I’ll have a blog section in the book’s website. Maybe in the future. Although I’m not really sure what would I blog about. But in the meantime, I have this blog that has been running since 2015 with over a hundred of posts. So why not link to this blog? That is a good way to get more followers in “The Diaries of the Happy Writer”.
    • A Contact page where anybody can contact me. I’m mostly thinking of people who might be interested in an ARC (Advanced Read Copy) or something like that.
    • The controversial “Fanfiction” page which after some careful consideration in a previous post, I decided to give it a go. It’s not like I’m a world famous author and will get myself into suing readers for copyright issues. The more people that can read my book, the better, and I’m honored if someone ever thinks of writing fanfiction about it.
    • The Reviews page. Although, reviews are preferred in store sites like Amazon or Goodreads, it is still okay for me if people want to leave their review on site. The page will still include, of course, links to the retailers’ sites.

    The homepage links to a synopsis of the story too where I had the chance to use my wonderful illustrations.

    I’m pretty sure this content is not stone-fixed. While this adventure of self-publishing my book continues, I’m pretty sure that I will find myself re-doing certain things. I might need to add other sections to the website that I hadn’t thought before. A blog section could be needed to boost the SEO, for example. But at this stage, I’m happy to say that The Last Families’s website is ready. Please make sure to click the button and subscribe to get updates:

    check The Last families’ website

  • Fan Fiction when you are an Author

    If you’ve been a follower of this blog for a long time, you probably know that I started as a fan fiction writer. I don’t have any shame about it. I think that there is no better compliment as an author to have “fans” of your story. These fans have the story so glued in their brains and understand the characters so well, that they want to write a fan fiction about it. They might be looking forward to doing alternative endings, or simply writing scenes that were not mentioned in the book that somehow they can imagine happening. If you write a fan fiction story, it is usually because you liked the story, the characters made an imprint on you, and you feel they deserve your time to write about them.

    Photo by Startup Stock Photos on Pexels.com

    I know that many authors are against fan fiction. To many it looks as if others are stealing their characters and breaching copyright. I thought a lot about this. But being a good follower of many fan fiction platforms, I’m aware that in most of the cases, there is always a disclaimer at the beginning of the story, about who the characters belong to and also author’s recognition.

    Therefore, I would love to have a “The Last Families” (my fantasy novel to be released soon) reader who wanted to write a fan fiction story about it. Building a fan base is quite hard and what better way to encourage fans than allowing them to be creative?

    In addition, for those that are not much into writing, there are also fan-made illustrations. I believe it is an honor to have fans spend time into crafting and drawing illustrations about your characters and/or scenes. I’ve seen many of these illustrations on Pinterest and Tumblr only because I’ve also followed boards of books/stories/movies that I enjoyed and I was excited to see illustrations coming alive.

    Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

    I’m about to finish by book’s website. But I’ve come across one idea that I haven’t seen much out there. Maybe there is an author who’s done it but I’m not aware of him or her. I want my readers to feel enticed to write fan fiction stories and to draw/illustrate their favorite characters scenes. I’v been thinking of including a section in the book’s website where they can submit those. The submission form will mostly make sure that there is a disclaimer about the use of my characters and story. I don’t know if it will work. I don’t if it will mess the copyright things. I only want the readers of “The Last Families” to be able to have a space, with the author’s consent, to submit their stories. where they can have their own side plots, alternative endings and unwritten scenes. I also want the readers to find an interactive section on this website where they can read and see fan fiction and illustrations submitted by other readers. I’m not sure if this idea will work or even if I will have people who like the story so much in order to devote time to it. But the idea has been nagging me for a long time. After all, there is no way to avoid from fan fiction happening on other platforms. I’ve been a fan fiction writer myself and it would have been great to submit my stories to the author as a tribute of how much I enjoyed their story. I only know that the I have to dare and try. I don’t have much to lose. It is self-published and I’m the only person who owns the rights. What do you think?

    Photo by Min An on Pexels.com

  • The book’s website

    I’m continuing on this path to publishing my first fantasy novel. I hope the process can benefit somebody out there. The whole process was delayed a bit due to another personal project I was working on. But I’m glad to announce that I’m back and ready to focus on a very important goal for me, self-publishing my first book. As I started to gather all the info that I would need for a cover, I realized that my fantasy novel would benefit from its own website, which will be mentioned in the back cover’s footer and also inside the book.

    A website for a book can be a little bit tricky. What should you include in that book? A preface, some chapters, reviews? I’m still in the process of figuring that out. But I soon realized that the book would need some visual material aside from the book cover. Given that “The Last families” is a fantasy novel, I thought it would be a good idea to have some sketches/illustrations of my characters. I’m not really sure if this would work for another genre, but I get the feeling that it works well for a fantasy audience. Therefore, I got a friend, Pablo Rico to help me with the illustrations.

    I considered adding those illustrations inside the book (although I never envisioned my book with illustrations), but since an e-book doesn’t support illustrations in color, it won’t make much sense to have then inside the novel’s content (my characters heavily rely on colorful characteristics). Therefore, the illustrations will be mainly used in the book’s website (currently being built) and promotion on social media when I’m ready to launch the book.

    I thought I would share with you some of the process that Pablo shared with me when creating one of the villains in the story, Ian (please check his Instagram ,he is really a brilliant artist) I loved seeing my character becoming alive.

    This is Ian. He is one of the villains, if not “the villain” in “The Last Families”. He is a native of Gambir (the island where the story takes place) and here is an extract of his character description:

    Only the dark-haired man stepped down from his horse. His short black hair was cut into a square outline around his face. Brown eyes, tanned skin, long nose, and almost purple lips distinguished his face. He was tall and muscular. A long brown fur vest stretched down to his calves. Completing his outfit, he wore a black inner vest and dark fabric pants.

    He is the leader. Mandely knew. And even if he wasn’t, he exerted authority among the other people, remaining one step in front of the others…

    The last families

    I’m hoping to have more information about my book’s website in a next post and share more about the process itself.

    What do you think about Ian? Wanting to know more about him?

  • About the Last Families

    “The Last Families” is the title that I decided to give my fantasy novel. This is the first piece of fantasy I have ever tried to write. Since I didn’t feel confident to do the research required to place my story in a specific location, I decided to give the fantasy genre a shot. I soon realized that I felt comfortable with creating my own world.

    Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

    After doing some research, my story falls in the category of “high-fantasy”. The definition of high fantasy, according to Wikipedia is:

    High fantasy is set in an alternative, fictional (“secondary”) world, rather than the “real” or “primary” world.[2] This secondary world is usually internally consistent, but its rules differ from those of the primary world. By contrast, low fantasy is characterized by being set in earth, the primary or real world, or a rational and familiar fictional world with the inclusion of magical elements.

    After giving the warning of being high-fantasy, let me tell a bit more about my story:

    The last continent left on earth is perishing. Escaping through the earth’s core, the last families have reached Gambir. The island’s scorching hot sun and shores that can suck boats into a deep abyss are only some minor dangers compared to its inhabitants.

    Characterized by purple, white, green, and red hair and unmistakable eye colors, each family has unique physiologies. Ninfire women can not only get pregnant in their eighties but also fly. Drontas twins die when their sibling does in spite of the family’s unnatural force. The green family, the Kaptarish, can burn anything they touch with their hands while the Verbaren– composed of only cousins since women can only have one child -used to read minds. 

    The apparent leader of Gambir, Ian, has set eyes on Yarisha Verbaren – the only mind-reader of the Verbaren family. But the young girl has developed feelings for Malakay, the most arrogant sibling in the Ninfire family. She knows the young man’s mother and the matriarch of the Ninfires, Mandely, will never consent to this relationship since she considers the Verbaren family to be inferior. 

    Meanwhile, trying to seek refuge and build a good relationship with the island’s inhabitants, Marquesh, the patriarch of the Drontas family will need to leave his wife in order to protect his children. He will get help from Palista, the old Kaptarish family matriarch. What he doesn’t know is that the old woman hides a secret and that she must hurry to pass her leadership skills to her grandson. 

    Soon these families will find out that skin color could determine their survival. In their quest to escape, they will uncover who is really in charge in Gambir, and learn not only from this island, but also from their inner personal strengths. 

    As you probably noticed, this summary has been extracted from my query letter. It is hard to summarize the story but I’m happy to talk a bit more about it in other posts.

    Photo by Ylanite Koppens on Pexels.com

    Since I decided on self-publishing, I’m planning to set up a website for the book. A friend of mine is helping with some illustrations and they are looking fantastic so far. I’m looking forward to showing them in a next post as I delve myself into this process of self-publishing. I hope that my experience in this process will be somehow helpful to others.

    What do you think of the premise of my fantasy story? I would like to hear some impressions

  • Self-publishing time

    I always told myself that I would explore the different approaches to publishing. The first one, traditional publishing, seemed to be the desired one since you imagine a literary agent guiding you in these waters of publishing. You imagine them taking care of all the logistics that is involved in publishing your book so you can focus in more writing. But as I already knew, nailing a literary agent, and then a publishing house, is not easy at all. I’ve even heard that I would waste my time searching for an agent. But since I was in no hurry to publish, I decided I would try pitching agents first. And I have done it in the past 8 months. I’ve pitched to many agents. Some of them were polite to reply and say “thanks but no thanks” and others didn’t even reply. I must admit that I was sort of expecting this outcome given how difficult I’ve heard is to call the attention of a literary agent. But I still wanted to give a try.

    Now, I’m ready to move on to plan B. Self-publishing.

    Photo by Talha R on Pexels.com

    I wasn’t that scared of the logistics of self-publishing. I knew I could find my way around and hire help where I needed, but I was a bit scared of the time it would take to figure all this out and the time it would involve managing all the process. But at this point, I have the feeling that I have to get my fantasy novel “The Last Families” out there. I’ve spent a couple of years on it and it deserves to be out there. It is a personal challenge.

    I’ve taken on self-publishing planning now, wanting to go slowly step by step. Time is my constraint. I have a good day job, and aside from that job, I’m organizing a tech online event, I attend two Public Speaking clubs, one reading club, and try to stay as physically active as possible. But publishing this book is important and I have to find it time. Moreover, it is time to stop wishing some literary agent will fall from the sky to help with all the hassle 🙂

    Photo by OVAN on Pexels.com

    Therefore, I’ve started gathering information. I’ve already decided I want both the ebook version and the printed version. Given that, there is a lot to do on the matter of formatting the book, getting a cover designed, etc. I’ve already began researching Print On demand services and I’ve already discarded a couple of them. Given that I’m in Bolivia, some of these services don’t deal with authors from outside the US, or as I was told by IngramSpark “digital signature is not supported in your country”. Well….

    On the good side, I’m positive on the design and promotion part. I think I know good people that can help me with that.

    Photo by Ron Lach on Pexels.com

    As I post on this Blog more about the process, I will probably start changing its look, given that the domain name already has my author name, and this will probably become my Author website.

    I’ll start talking a bit more about my fantasy story in next posts so that you can hear what is it about. I’m waiting first on some visual materials to go with this.

    In the meantime, if anybody has good references or experiences with the Print on demand options, I would deeply appreciate to hear from you. Wish me good luck in this process. 🙂

  • What happens after the manuscript is done?

    There comes a point in time when you realize that the manuscript is ready to go out there. Or at least you want to believe that. My fantasy manuscript is ready and I’ve already started seeing publishing options (I’ll check first the traditional options and if not, self-publishing). The process is long, so what happens in the meantime?

    I could have waited and concentrated my energy for the fantasy manuscript to reach its end-result: the published book. But for some reason, I decided that while I wait for replies on query letters, I could start working on a new project. Therefore, I’ve started a new manuscript on a new different story, based on an idea has been nagging me for some time and I didn’t want to wait anymore.

    Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

    I realized that as I get more into this writing process, the better I feel. I spent a lot of time on my first original thriller manuscript (which was left incomplete several years ago – it is still lying there, dormant), but the story had too many plot holes, and the characters were too simple. Perhaps, I’ll come back to it some day, with a refreshed and more interesting approach- or a complete revamp. In the meantime, if you count that original manuscript, the recently finished fantasy one, then this would be the third time starting the whole process of writing a new story. And I feel it gets better with time. I’ve also realized I’m definitely not a plotter, not a pantser, but a mix of the two.

    When I started my fantasy manuscript, I found an interesting technique that I’m considering this time too. I started writing as a pantser, wanting to know where the characters and story led me to. But then I realized that if you keep as a pantser, you face the risk of entering an endless journey with no direction. So I stopped, and came back to analyze the story and characters. This process worked very well during the fantasy manuscript. Characters were one of my best improvements and I feel very proud of how they developed in my fantasy manuscript. Still, the story plot became too complex at some point, and there were some editing rounds where I had to “patch” some massive story plot holes.

    Photo by Negative Space on Pexels.com

    In the new manuscript, let’s call it the “dystopian” one, which is more or less the genre of this one, I feel more confident about “sketching” characters, letting them being, and experimenting changes. I think I got a better hold on that process. Now, I want to improve the process for developing my storyline. I’m planning on introducing a bit more “plotting” on this manuscript to not lose as much track of it as it happened on the fantasy one. However, I’m definitely not planning on becoming a rigid plotter, killing my creativity and adaptability to change.

    I’ve already written the first 45 pages of the dystopian manuscript .They were mostly done in a pantser “state”. Then I stopped. Now I’m going through these 45 pages to give it more structure. I want to still be able to fly with the story, let my writing spirit be free, but with a bit more of structure. It is working rather well until now.

    In addition, I’m starting to do deeper editing from the start. I want this first manuscript draft to be in a more decent readable state than my previous manuscripts where the first draft was barely readable. I hope this approach works better so that future editing rounds are not as hard and time consuming than previous ones. Also, I’ll start searching for beta readers in an earlier stage. Feedback is important. It is tough on writers, but we need it. Let’s see how my new writing approach works now.

    And you, do you feel your writing process improves with each project?

    Photo by Lisa Fotios on Pexels.com

  • Writing after editing/copywriting

    I decided to give it a go to professional editing of my manuscript. After getting a good hunch on a video from this editor, I paid for it and waited an external/unknown person to finally take a look at my manuscript. I wasn’t expecting much as I knew I had picked a considerable affordable service. I thought it would be mostly about grammar, spelling, punctuation, verb tenses, sentence structure, word choices etc. The type of editing that I worried most about since English is not my first language. But I was surprised to get a very detailed feedback about the story itself.

    The feedback included very good points about plot holes that I hadn’t thought about. Twists in the story that didn’t make much sense or that could be better explained. I absolutely loved that part. My fantasy story has many characters in it, so having someone deeply connecting all characters’ reasons and subplots was great. She was able to find small details of parts of the story I had completely forgot or contradicted. I loved this copywriting part more than the editing one. I came to understand that this is actually called developmental editing which involves checking story inconsistencies, discrepancies, factual errors, etc.

    Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

    I got great feedback from character development which actually surprised me. In a previous attempt with a first manuscript of a different story, my weakest point was character development. That story is on standby as it needs lots of rewriting. But most of the feedback that I got from the few beta readers, back in those days, was that characters didn’t feel multidimensional and there was no evolvement in their personalities, no growth. That really caught my attention, and when I started writing this new manuscript, I focused on writing good characters. It paid off, and I’m truly happy for it. It made the whole process feel that it had potential.

    I still have to work fixing some parts of the story but it doesn’t feel like an impossible job right now. It feels very tangible and I’m already in one-fourth of the total manuscript length of this new round of revision, and it is only been a week since I started. I feel encouraged but mostly proud of my fictional characters.

    Photo by Belle Co on Pexels.com

  • Writing in confinement

    I haven’t written in my Blog in while, as always. I wanted to focus any writing effort to working on my manuscript. I finally finished doing my second round of editing review, and now I don’t feel guilty to swift my attention to other type of writing.

    From all the bad things that this confinement has brought to our lives, there is one that has been positive for me. I have been able to find the time and discipline to finish editing my manuscript. I already had a plan before the confinement. I was trying to work at least one hour per day on editing. However, I must confess there were many days when I wouldn’t work since I would be absorbed by time, work, and other activities. The quarantine in my country has pushed me to be more responsible with my editing, but more than anything, I have to be honest I felt afraid.

    Photo by energepic.com on Pexels.com

    This pandemic has brought fear in general to our lives and nobody knows how our future will be. I wanted to have at least this goal finished in my life. It has been one week since I’ve finished editing. There is still a lot to do with the manuscript. I have one dear friend helping me with her expert editing eye. I’ll be also finding other people to beta read it and then start seeing options of how can I get this out there. But more than anything, finishing that goal has brought me a good sense of peace in my mind. I already have some other stories luring in my head and some good ideas for new manuscripts. I might explore them later. But for now, I’m giving myself some weeks to rest. Writing, editing and working has been a bit tough on my schedule and I urgently need that rest.

    Photo by Tomas Anunziata on Pexels.com

    This blog post didn’t have any specific topic in mind. I just wanted to get this update out there for anyone that might be reading my blog and register this point in my lifetime. If there is something good we can get from these hard times, it is the time to finish some personal goals.

    My country is in a very strict control and quarantine. Only people that are between 18 and 65 years old can go out and on a specific schedule depending on the last number of your ID. For example, I can only go out to the street on Mondays, from 7am to 12pm. Everybody must remain at home on afternoons and evenings, and weekends. If you are out of your home after 12 pm or if your ID doesn’t match the “ID of the day”, you get arrested, taken to jail, and you have to pay a fine. In other words, you can’t even go around the park or to take a walk around your neighborhood. Driving is, of course, completely banned, unless you have a special permit. Markets, supermarkets, and pharmacies are opened. Other business are not, including restaurants. There are no delivery services of any kind, only pharmacies. If you need to move to another location in the city on the day you are allowed to go out, you have to walk. There are no means of public transportation. It is quite tough, but needed. I’m crossing fingers, the situation will get better. It is a good time for writing but bad time for a writer’s spirit.

    Photo by Greg on Pexels.com

    And you, how is your writing dealing with these times?