D. Hart St. Martin

I make female heroes badass AND believable

Fantasy

That Timey-Wimey Thing

by Leave a Comment

That’s my mess

With first draft done on my WIP, I have begun rewrite. I totally pantsed this one. Lots of notes in a notebook with a ton of Post-Its used to tag the stuff I’ll need eventually, but no outline, no 4 x 6 cards. I love that notebook, messy as it is. It’s a window into the process and a reminder of how far I have yet to go. (And yes, that’s a Wikipedia article on Komodo dragons slipped between the pages. Let that whet your appetite.)

But pantsing presents its own perils, one of which is the fact that one often can’t paint oneself out of a corner until she’s actually painted herself into it first. Well into it. Into it to the point where there are three coats of paint waiting to dry and there’s no getting out until the true color of the paint reveals itself and allows the painter to walk out without marring the finish.

In my case, the corner was a time thing. Or, rather, two time things.

Let me state right off that my current WIP is not a time-travel story. It is a story of a young woman who travels back and forth between earth and another world via a magic gateway (of sorts). But as I wrote, time became an issue. Or issues.

First, I needed time to pass normally wherever my hero (and sole POV character) happened to be at the moment, but no time could pass where she wasn’t until she was there again. This was easy. I gave her companion—a woman who appears to have traveled through the gateway many times before the story begins—a single line which will likely show up at the beginning of the second book. “It’s as though time holds our place and brings us back to precisely when we were last.” One problem solved.

Then there was the other thing. My hero must age from fifteen to eighteen from the beginning of the series to the end, but I don’t want to write a dozen books to get there. I’ve had certain “adventures” set out for her for a while now, and I hoped I wouldn’t have to expand on them. And yet, how do I get her from fifteen to eighteen without filling her days both on earth and in the alternate world with adventure?

I was stuck. I had story enough for four books, maybe five, but needed more to fill the holes created by the extended time required to let her mature. I knew how to get her from book 1 to book 2 with a five-month gap between stories, but I couldn’t use an angry separation between my hero and another main character every time. I’m a writer. I tell stories. I have to be original.

I looked to C.S. Lewis and his Chronicles of Narnia. He succeeded in bridging time by aging the children out and using a different method of accessing Narnia in each book. I had one hero whom I planned on aging out but not until I resolved her story and could end the series. I also had one means of transporting her back and forth which I rather liked and didn’t want to change. Especially since it includes another character I want to keep.

The “gateway” perhaps?

Turning to Lewis did prove helpful, however. I allowed the gateway to become an impulsive entity, sometimes receptive, sometimes not—and, hence, unavailable until it was ready—forcing my hero to repeatedly request access over time unsuccessfully until the gateway relented. And that eliminated the second problem.

I love the muse, don’t you?

Breaking Worlds Cover Reveal

by 2 Comments

Lisen sat in the study off her office, her legs stretched out, the hearth cold and dark before her. She’d earned the cold, deserved nothing better. Her life was over. Rinli was dead.

Thus, does Breaking Worlds, Book V in the Lisen of Solsta series, begin—with the slow dirge of the heart’s drumbeat and unrelenting grief over the loss of a child. Such a story must be accompanied by a very special cover, and Aidana WillowRaven, cover artist extraordinaire, did not fail in her assignment.

Breaking Worlds front cover - web

Aidana is a cover artist. There is a difference between a cover designer and an artist. A designer incorporates the work of others (photos mostly) to create original covers for their clients’ books. An artist, on the other hand, starts with a blank canvas, listens to the writer’s thoughts on the scene or object to be depicted, then takes the idea and creates her own vision of it.

I have to say Aidana created a masterpiece this time, and I am thrilled to share it here with all of you. Admittedly, I micromanaged a bit. (I always do.) But she put her heart and soul into the depiction of a moment which doesn’t actually appear in the book; it occurs between one scene and another. Hats off to you, my friend, my collaborator! And thank you for all your hard work.

(Breaking Worlds will be available soon on Amazon in print and Kindle.)

One Book or Two?

by Leave a Comment

I have found myself recently running a back-and-forth in my head surrounding the efficacy of splitting the final book in the Lisen of Solsta series into two separate volumes. I’ve just passed the point where I would break it, and I certainly do not have enough “story” apparent in my remaining notecards.

books-glasses

But here’s the thing. The number of notecards left to be brought to life in the text has little relation to the amount of writing left to be done. My notecard system (previously described) continues on in an abstract configuration until I begin to narrow in on the sequence of events noted in a single card. Then that card, like a living cell, splits into two, into four, into eight—you get the picture.

So, do I have two books in this story? Or, will I end up with but one, slightly longer than the last but not long enough to split up? Stay tuned. Only time will tell.

The Build–Writing a Worthy Ending

by 1 Comment

I am not a Led Zeppelin fan. In the 70s and 80s, whenever a radio station would present the top 300 or 500 of the entire history of rock-and-roll on Memorial Day or Labor Day weekend, I’d cringe as they approached #1. It was always, inexorably, inexplicably, inevitably “Stairway to Heaven.” I hate “Stairway to Heaven.” I do, however, have a Led Zeppelin guilty pleasure. “Kashmir.” I crank it up on my car radio when it comes on. I’ve even downloaded it from iTunes and am listening to it right now as loud as my Walkman will allow me.

What, you may ask, intrigues me about this song? The build. The slow build of drums  and bass into brass and other orchestral wonders. And that relentless beat. My body moves with no conscious participation on my part.  And then the lyrical pauses with the taste of Eastern  delights.

As writers, we can learn from “Kashmir.” At the moment, I am in the middle of what could be a powerful ending to my latest novel, but that power, I realized last night, lies in the build. Don’t go too fast. I’m tempted to just rush in and then leave myself with nowhere to go because I’ve already crescendoed to the peak. I know where we’re going, and I want so badly to get there because it’s going to blow the reader’s mind. But I must slow down, allow fate to tickle at the reader’s heart but leave as little trace as possible until the fullness is revealed. This is a delicate balance which must be respected. Nuance is everything. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

73 words

by 1 Comment

I’m not the first to write on this topic, and I certainly won’t be the last. But I’m going to be short but sweet.

“Strong female hero”

Seriously?

“Hero,” definition #1a in Merriam-Webster:  A mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability (emphasis mine).

Have you ever once read or heard someone say “strong male hero”?  Or, even, “strong hero”?

Point made. Thank you for your time.

The Tales of Eowyn’s Bard

by 1 Comment

eowyn

Eowyn of Rohan opened my eyes to a new kind of hero. It was the summer of 1966 when I first read The Lord of the Rings, and I would be graduating from high school the following year. Eowyn epitomized “hero” for me—confident, courageous, willing to run into the fray, filled with empathy for Merry (another favorite character) and, most importantly, female. The fact that she had the hots for the cutest guy on the block was a bit of a hindrance, and her exclusion from the final face-off after being scuttled off the battlefield in dire need of healing almost made me stop reading. But, in the end, Eowyn rocked, and her determination and tenacity gave me hope that a woman might one day be able to stand at the front of the story as the character propelling it forward.

By the 70s, female heroes had begun to emerge. And I sought them out. But they were almost always one of two types—buxom beauties with their “accomplishments” prominently displayed on the book’s cover or tomboy girls whose elders sought (and usually managed) to reduce to a medieval Stepford prototype once she’d completed her quest. Neither of these was the hero I was looking for.

Eventually I gave in and decided to create a female hero worthy of the title. It took over 30 years to fully realize my quest, but I did in Lisen of Solsta, a young woman who steps on the stage without the usual baggage young female characters too often carry into the fight. (It helps that she lives in a world where sexism and division of labor and duties by gender have never existed, but that’s a story I’ve explored several times previously and will not further explore it now.)

One shero (thank you, Maya Angelou) from the 80s comes to mind. Sarah Connor in the original Terminator. She was the hero of the movie. Her hero’s journey begins with her as a frivolous college student/waitress and ends (for that moment, of course) as a warrior on the run from future terminators like the one she (not Kyle) destroyed.

And in the past few years, I’ve had the joy of discovering several female heroes who bash the stereotypes bloody and stand tall amidst the muck. It seems our day has come. Finally.

So, in the hopes of opening discussion of and promoting books and other media featuring female heroes, I have created a page on Facebook. I look forward to learning about more strong women in fantasy, sci-fi and paranormal settings. I also want to encourage discussion of what makes a healthy and realistic female hero as well as discover who’s slamming stereotypes up against the wall. If you’re interested, feel free to check my new page out. That’s The Tales of Eowyn’s Bard.