I am so excited to announce that Of Frost is coming to Audible in the very near future! I've been working with an amazing voice actor, along with her editing team, to bring my characters right to your ears.
Before I even wanted my book in my hands, I wanted to bring it to audio. I've listened to my stories for years on automated voices online, trying to better grasp how my story sounded vs. how I wanted it to sound. But automated text-to-speech can only go so far. Robot-like dialogue, awkward pacing, and flat deliveries left something to be desired. That's why, for my audiobook audition, when I heard words I wrote spoken in a soft, human voice with all the energy and emotion I felt writing it, I nearly cried.
The main reason I've wanted my books in audio has been for my family's sake. Those who know me know I have relatives who can't read English well, but these people (bless them) are still deeply interested in my book. For people like my dad, my grandma, and my German aunts, uncles, and cousins, audiobooks give them the chance to experience literature without having to read English.
Because of audiobooks, I've powered through hours of painting and sketching without noticing that time has even passed. As I struggled to bring my first portrait to life, I listened to The Eye of the World from The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. Now, that audio is nearly 30 hours long, so I didn't finish it all in one sitting, but it was long past midnight before I sat back in my painting chair and paused my mental movie (hugely recommended by the way).
Unfortunately, the commitment of sitting down to fully absorb a good book is much more difficult than it once was. Life is often too busy to take a break, and--let's admit it--when you're tired, it's easier to turn your brain off and watch something than meticulously try to understand the protagonist's next move. How much more relaxing would it be if you could sit back, close your eyes, and let the story play through your ears? Best of both worlds!
All that to say--I can't wait until the rest of the world can hear my book really come to life. Keep checking my social media pages to see updates on this progress.
-AC
BUY OF FROST: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1792841450
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Thursday, March 21, 2019
Monday, March 4, 2019
Historical Fiction vs. Fantasy Fiction -- My Views
As a fantasy writer, I've often been approached with the argument that my writing is easier than historical fiction. Somehow, there exists a notion that fantasy writers can just spit whatever ideas they think of onto a page and call it a functioning novel, while historical writers push up their glasses, roll back their sleeves, and spend grueling hours poring over ancient manuscripts to be sure that October 9th, 1825 was indeed a Sunday, or to discover whether or not ancient Greeks commonly slept on pillows (they did).
I experimented as a kid with historical writing. I was around 11 or 12 when I was inspired by Mount&Blade, a popular medieval fighting/strategy computer game. I researched all kinds of things I needed and wrote a story about a female soldier who fell in love with her general in 540 AD. I made the story collide with the Plague of Justinian, which made things pretty interesting. (Sidenote: I chose the Plague of Justinian because I thought the Black Plague was too mainstream. So hipster.)
Looking back on those old books, I laugh at my emotion-driven plot, whiny, unrealistic characters, and laughable dialogue. But I think I did alright with my facts. I remembering researching if they had soap, what they ate, how regiments campaigned, how they kept up their food stocks, if they had towels and what they were made of, among a thousand other little things. To this day, I'm proud of the work that went into that book, even if no one will ever see it.
I don't like playing the comparison game with writing, in any sense. I hold to the belief that all writing is both work and play. From the nonsensical children stories of Lewis Carroll to The Art of War and everything in-between, all writing has structure, and it takes a special being to put the time and effort into researching, formulating, and breathing life into a novel based in historical fact. However, since I myself have more experience with fantasy than historical writing, I want to touch on the challenges of my own field.
The first thing I usually say when talking to someone about fantasy writing are the fences. The job of a historical writer is to find out where the fences are, i.e. What day was October 9th, 1825? When was toothpaste invented? What did an English servant wear to work?) Once they know these fences, they can create a story within them.
With fantasy writing, I build my own fences. That sounds like the fun part, and it is, but the trouble is remembering where I put all of them. I create every aspect of my world, good and bad. I build my own history. So I have to keep track of days, months, and years with made-up names, going back centuries. I have to build an origin and add events that have shaped the world to be what it is. I make characters out of races I know and races I make up, but I also try to explain how and why they exist. This isn't all done in one fell swoop, of course. The point of my writing isn't to make up a new history book for a world no one cares about yet. The point is to introduce my world through characters my readers can meet and grow to love.
Every universe has rules, no matter how random, even if having no rules is the only rule. Even that can be broken. Consistency is key in fantasy writing. Once consistency is broken, the reader will be jerked right out of the story. And that's true of both historical and fantasy writing.
The problems I found in Of Frost have been mainly the past. I want to connect the history of Aranea in some ways to Earth's history, so the reader feels like they're in a familiar world while at the same time seeing things they may not normally see (magic, strange creatures, etc.). So I build off what I know, what I believe, and what I expect. Ardellon, the region Of Frost is based in, is a very human region. But I have plans to expand into some other places with not-so-familiar creatures. It's important when I do this that I remember to ground the reader with some things they recognize while I play with bolder colours. Keeping a balance between real and fantastic will, hopefully, suck the reader in and keep them.
In conclusion, there's no way of writing that doesn't include some grit, some perseverance, and plain hard work. Both historical and fantasy writing have their mountains, and what I do is a bit of a blend between the two. At any rate, it is up to you, the writer, to decide how you want your book to play out. Give your characters time to inspire you, and they can point the way.
-AC
What is your opinion on this?
BUY OF FROST: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1792841450
I experimented as a kid with historical writing. I was around 11 or 12 when I was inspired by Mount&Blade, a popular medieval fighting/strategy computer game. I researched all kinds of things I needed and wrote a story about a female soldier who fell in love with her general in 540 AD. I made the story collide with the Plague of Justinian, which made things pretty interesting. (Sidenote: I chose the Plague of Justinian because I thought the Black Plague was too mainstream. So hipster.)
Looking back on those old books, I laugh at my emotion-driven plot, whiny, unrealistic characters, and laughable dialogue. But I think I did alright with my facts. I remembering researching if they had soap, what they ate, how regiments campaigned, how they kept up their food stocks, if they had towels and what they were made of, among a thousand other little things. To this day, I'm proud of the work that went into that book, even if no one will ever see it.
I don't like playing the comparison game with writing, in any sense. I hold to the belief that all writing is both work and play. From the nonsensical children stories of Lewis Carroll to The Art of War and everything in-between, all writing has structure, and it takes a special being to put the time and effort into researching, formulating, and breathing life into a novel based in historical fact. However, since I myself have more experience with fantasy than historical writing, I want to touch on the challenges of my own field.
The first thing I usually say when talking to someone about fantasy writing are the fences. The job of a historical writer is to find out where the fences are, i.e. What day was October 9th, 1825? When was toothpaste invented? What did an English servant wear to work?) Once they know these fences, they can create a story within them.
With fantasy writing, I build my own fences. That sounds like the fun part, and it is, but the trouble is remembering where I put all of them. I create every aspect of my world, good and bad. I build my own history. So I have to keep track of days, months, and years with made-up names, going back centuries. I have to build an origin and add events that have shaped the world to be what it is. I make characters out of races I know and races I make up, but I also try to explain how and why they exist. This isn't all done in one fell swoop, of course. The point of my writing isn't to make up a new history book for a world no one cares about yet. The point is to introduce my world through characters my readers can meet and grow to love.
Every universe has rules, no matter how random, even if having no rules is the only rule. Even that can be broken. Consistency is key in fantasy writing. Once consistency is broken, the reader will be jerked right out of the story. And that's true of both historical and fantasy writing.
The problems I found in Of Frost have been mainly the past. I want to connect the history of Aranea in some ways to Earth's history, so the reader feels like they're in a familiar world while at the same time seeing things they may not normally see (magic, strange creatures, etc.). So I build off what I know, what I believe, and what I expect. Ardellon, the region Of Frost is based in, is a very human region. But I have plans to expand into some other places with not-so-familiar creatures. It's important when I do this that I remember to ground the reader with some things they recognize while I play with bolder colours. Keeping a balance between real and fantastic will, hopefully, suck the reader in and keep them.
In conclusion, there's no way of writing that doesn't include some grit, some perseverance, and plain hard work. Both historical and fantasy writing have their mountains, and what I do is a bit of a blend between the two. At any rate, it is up to you, the writer, to decide how you want your book to play out. Give your characters time to inspire you, and they can point the way.
-AC
What is your opinion on this?
BUY OF FROST: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1792841450
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