Category Archives: Gail Z. Martin

by | March 23, 2011 · 1:00 am

The Dreaded Blurb

by Crymsyn Hart

How do you know what a book is about?

You read the book jacket or the back cover. Or if you’re perusing the website of a publisher or a bookseller, then you read the narrative of the book on the page. It has to be brief to describe the nature of the book, but it has to be witty enough to draw the potential reader in. It can’t reveal too much about the plot, but you have to give just the right amount of balance to make it sound intriguing. All within a certain amount of words or space. It’s a writer’s nightmare. Well, at least one of my nightmares anyway.

Yes, the dreaded blurb. How do I count the ways of how much I despise writing you? I think I’d prefer someone shoving wooden splinters underneath my fingernails. Or better yet pulling out my teeth with a rusty wrench. I cringe every time I have to write the 100-150 word description of a novel. Sure, I can agonize over it for days. Sometimes even lose some sleep over it, but in the end, I finally think of the words that I think give a good balance for the theme and the characters.

After all the books that my muses have helped me create, I hate to think of what I need to write. How much do you talk about the hero? How much to put down about the heroine? Will the reader get what the book is about even with the blurb? These are all things that run through my head. And then, after you’ve written the dreaded blurb, the publisher decides it wasn’t good enough ad changes it on you.

If this can help sell books then great, but don’t they know how hard I worked on the description? It hasn’t happened to me more than a couple of times, but it was a little surprising. Although, in the end the blurb was a mixture of mine and theirs. It was okay.

I’ve gotten some great advice from other authors on how to write blurbs. Over the years, mine have gotten tighter and shorter. I wouldn’t say I’m a professional now, but I’ve overcome numerous hurtles. So anyone that has to write a blurb, I wish you luck. Make is sexy. Make it intriguing. Make it brief with that hook that will help you catch many a reader.

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by | March 17, 2011 · 10:18 am

Vampire Trends: the more things change, the more they stay the same

by Gail Z. Martin

Ok, this will probably come as a big surprise, but I love vampires.  Yeah, I know, you already guessed.  If you’ve been following my recently read books on @GailZMartin or Shelfari, you know I’ve just read through all 9 of MaryJanice Davidson’s Queen Betsy books (the Undead and Unwed series).  They’re fun and sassy and light, and quite a hoot.  Just to give myself whiplash, I then started to read Hotel Transylvania by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, with her oh, so sexy and mysterious Count Saint-Germain.  Completely different in tone and setting, but very engrossing.  And just to round it out, my husband and I started watching the 1991 remake of Dark Shadows on Netflix, with Ben Cross as Barnabas Collins.

Which got me thinking—my how our vampires have changed.  The original Dark Shadows was a product of the 1960s, and the remake stayed pretty faithful to the plot arc of the original.  It had a vampire yearning to be human again long before Anne Rice’s Louis, and it’s interesting to me to see that even in 1991, the idea that Barnabas and Victoria could be together without him needing to end his existence as a vampire was completely beyond thought.  Of course, in many of today’s urban fantasy books, mortals mix with many supernaturals and taking a lover among the undead is no big deal.  The subtitle of Hotel Transylvania is “a novel of forbidden love” so in the 1970s, when it was published, there was still a bigger taboo against mortal/vampire love than there is today.

Then there’s the whole vampire gravitas thing.  Saint-Germain has it—he’s a serious kind of guy.  Sinclair in the Queen Betsy series also has it—it takes Betsy to lighten him up.  Lestat had macabre humor, but he wasn’t really a lot of laughs.  Barnabas would like to have some fun, but there’s the whole undead thing stopping him. (Speaking of which, in the remake series, why do they shoot scenes in broad daylight with blue sky and pretend it’s nighttime?)

So what’s the point?  Maybe only that some things have to remain the same for us to recognize vampires as vampires.  Daylight doesn’t bother Queen Betsy, but it’s still lethal for everyone else and she can drink anything but can’t eat real food.  Saint-Germain never eats food in public.  Barnabas grieves over having no reflection in a mirror.  Although authors toy with changes around the edges of the vampire mythos, the more things change, the more they do seem to stay the same.

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by | March 10, 2011 · 10:09 am

Myth and Folklore

by Gail Z. Martin

At the last couple of conventions I attended, I was on several panels about myth and folklore.  It was a lot of fun discussing how myth and folklore show up in fantasy, as well as how as writers we use myth and folklore to create our own stories.  We talked about modern myths and how myth influences the real world, both in terms of deliberate mythmaking and pop culture/urban legend terms.  For talking about stories that were thousands of years old, the conversation sometimes got rather heated!

I like to draw inspiration from myth and folklore because I figure that if something about a trope or archetype has captured human imagination for hundreds or thousands of years, it’s good.  So I enjoy adapting and adjusting folkloric and mythic elements to make them my own, and to fit them into the world of the Winter Kingdoms.

Of course the conversation came around to vampires, werewolves and magic, which are intrinsic elements of folklore and mythology.  I mentioned how I still chuckle about the one book reviewer who was very impressed that I had “used urban fantasy tropes like vampires and werewolves” in a medieval, epic fantasy.  Of course, urban fantasy stole the tropes from medieval folklore!

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by | March 3, 2011 · 10:08 am

Caught Between Zones

by Gail Z. Martin

When I’m actively working on a book, I’ve found that I don’t like to read epic fantasy.  Part of it is not wanting to be subconsciously influenced by anything I’m reading.  Part of it is probably a desire for something different from what I’ve spent all day working on.  The difficulty is, now that I’m writing two fantasy books a year, it either means I have to figure out a new way to approach the problem or I won’t get to read any epics at all!

Lately, I’ve been enjoying urban fantasy, paranormal mysteries and cross-genre stuff like the Undead and Unwed series (a little of both with some paranormal romance thrown in, though with an emphasis on action/humor).  Since I often spend my time mentally living in the middle ages, it’s fun to spend my free time reading books that are so thoroughly modern.  Although, as I’ve mentioned to a couple of my friends who write paranormal mysteries, what is it with the Internet?  How come people don’t just Google what they need to know, like in real life, as opposed to saying, “Gee, we can’t catch the bad guy because we need to know something and the library is closed until Monday!”  I often will check the copyright date if characters in a book are stuck with only the library as a research tool or if they don’t use a cell phone.  I’ve also chuckled at some of the ways authors have managed to avoid a slam-dunk rescue by putting the hero out of cell phone range or making a point that the cell phone is dead.

On the other hand, over on the epic side of things, I often have to face the reality of how slowly information could get from one place to another in the pre-telephone/telegraph/email days.  Throughout history, battles were often fought weeks after the treaty had been signed because no one could get the word out to the troops in time!  As someone living in the modern world, I have to constantly remind myself that it would take weeks or months to send the fastest messenger, meaning that there’s no way characters separated by distance can know what’s going on with each other (unless there’s a magical alternative).

Writing books set in a time period other than the one I live in does make for an interesting feeling of being caught between zones.  Don’t even get me started on word origins

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by | February 24, 2011 · 10:07 am

A Life of Their Own

by Gail Z. Martin

Long-running series can be lots of fun because they take on a life of their own.  At the same time, it can be intimidating for new readers because once several books in the series are out, it can be daunting to get “caught up.”  That was the challenge I faced when I wrote The Sworn, which just came out in stores at the end of January.  It’s my fifth novel, and it’s set in my world of the Winter Kingdoms with many of the same characters as my first four books.  But I wanted to create a gateway into the world where someone new could enter without having to read the first four books (of course, I hope they’ll decide to do that later) and still enjoy the book.

Creating that kind of gateway changes how you write, because you can’t take for granted that every reader has the same collective memory about the places, events and characters.  At the same time, since you’re hoping that many of the people who’ve read your other books will want to read your new one, you don’t want to bore them by spending too much time recapping what went on before or re-introducing characters they already know.  It’s quite a challenge.

Before I wrote The Sworn, I paid attention to how other series writers handled the issue.  I noticed how they referred to important past events that had spoiler potential but which had to be explained at least in passing.  I noticed how subsequent books introduced long-running characters.  And I tried to examine from a reader’s perspective where I thought the situation was handled well and where it left me confused or bored.

I learn a lot from paying attention to how other authors handle certain types of plot issues.  It brings a whole new dimension to the way I read, because on one hand, I’m reading for plot and action just like a “regular” reader.  Then the writer side of me is busy looking under the hood to see how the other author handled the “mechanics” of the story.  I guess it’s like eating out at a restaurant when you’re also a chef.  You enjoy eating food that tastes good, but you can’t help wanting to peek into the kitchen to see how it’s cooked!

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by | February 17, 2011 · 10:07 am

News on The Sworn

by Gail Z. Martin

The Sworn is on bookstore shelves, and I am in bookstores doing signings and meeting with readers.  I really enjoy going to stores and conventions because it’s fun to talk with other people who enjoy reading.  It’s also fun to see how books find their way into people’s hands.  Many times, the person who will buy a signed book from me is buying for someone else.  I can’t count the number of times someone has said, “wait right here, I need to bring my {wife, sister, daughter, husband, brother, son, etc.} over to meet you—he/she likes that kind of book.”  I’ve seen people call someone on a cell phone or drag them down the mall or across the store because I’ve got “their kind of book.”  It’s also fun to think of my books being someone’s present for a birthday, Christmas, or another holiday or a care package sent to troops overseas.  I remember one man came into a bookstore just before Valentine’s Day last year with his son.  The man looked lost, and I asked if he was looking for a gift.  When I told him about my books (which I happened to be signing that day), he lit up like I had just solved his problem and bought all four that were out at the time!

Books are often considered to be less personal than a gift of clothing or jewelry, but picking the right book for someone is intensely personal if you really want to find a book that the person will care about.  It also often requires the buyer to set aside his/her preferences to get something the other person will enjoy.  The gift of the perfect book is a statement that the giver really knows you well.  It’s fun to be part of that chain!

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by | February 10, 2011 · 10:00 am

Here’s to reinvention!

by Gail Z. Martin

Postcards from Liminal Space—As I’m beginning to work on the new series (as yet unnamed, but don’t worry, readers here will be among the first to know), I realize that my characters are also traveling through the “between” places.  They’re grappling with questions like—who are you when everything has been stripped away?  If you lost everything, what would you try to rebuild, and what could you let go of?  When all the old markers of power and position no longer exist, can you still define yourself?  We’ve certainly seen a lot of people struggling with those kinds of questions in the real world, and coming to a variety of answers.  I’m fascinated with the process of reinvention, reawakening, re-imagining.  So as January ends and I step out of liminal space, I’m excited about the insights and possibilities, and enthusiastic about diving into the new series.  Here’s to reinvention!

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by | February 3, 2011 · 10:00 am

The Two-Faced God

by Gail Z. Martin

Postcards from Liminal Space—January was named for Janus, the two-faced god.  It makes sense.  It’s a month when we look forward and backward, when we’re nostalgic over what’s ending and tentatively excited about what’s beginning.  I can relate.  I’m wading into beginning a brand new series—new characters, a new world, a whole new world building exercise.  At the same time, I’m getting ready for the launch of The Sworn, which is the newest book set in the world of the Winter Kingdoms.  So I’ve got a foot in old and new, and it’s a little strange.

It’s really exciting to flex my imagination and bring a whole new cast of characters to life.  My mind is becoming a very crowded place!  And it’s also fun to work out their history, the culture and society, the beliefs and mythology—I’m exploring brand new territory, and once I find my way around, I’ll bring you with me.  At the same time, the beginning of any new journey is unsettling, because the traveling always changes the traveler.  Should be interesting.

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by | February 2, 2011 · 4:06 pm

New Books by Our Resident Bloggers

The Sworn by Gail Z. Martin is now in stores.

As plague and famine scourge the winter kingdoms, a vast invasion force is mustering from beyond the northern seas. And at its heart, a dark spirit mage wields the blood magic of ancient, vanquished gods.

Summoner-King Martris Drayke must attempt to meet this great threat, gathering an army from a country ravaged by civil war. Neighboring lands reel toward anarchy while plague decimates their leaders. Drayke must seek new allies from among the living – and the dead –- as an untested generation of rulers face their first battle.

Then someone disturbs the legendary Dread as they rest in a millennia-long slumber
beneath sacred barrows. Their warrior guardians, the Sworn, know the Dread could be pivotal as a force for great good or evil. But if it’s the latter, could even the Summoner-King’s sorcery prevail?

The Sworn is Book One of The Fallen Kings Cycle, and it picks up the adventures of Tris, Jonmarc and the Winter Kingdoms gang six months after the end of Dark Lady’s Chosen.  There are all new challenges, lots of dark magic and the biggest threat Margolan has faced in 400 years.

You can read the first chapter of The Sworn by clicking here

Or, you can listen to Gail read from Chapter One by clicking here.

Crossed: A Void City Novel by J.F. Lewis is also available now.

You can purchase Crossed from Amazon by clicking here.

You can also read an enlightening guest post on Greta by clicking here.

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by | January 27, 2011 · 10:00 am

Postcards from Liminal Space

by Gail Z. Martin

Postcards from Liminal Space—I am trying to open up some new ideas, not just for my writing, but for my vision of the future.  So in this first month of a new year, I am trying to be open to subtle nudges from my intuition, to dreams and memories, and to nature as it prepares for rebirth.  There have been times in my life when I felt so clearly that I was standing in-between what was and what would be, but I couldn’t see far enough to know what was going to happen, only that something was about to.  I have that sense now.  I think it’s a good thing, but any time your routine gets knocked topsy turvey there is an in-betweenness that is awkward.

I’m just finishing up The Dread, which is either book 6 in the Chronicles series or Book Two in the Fallen Kings Cycle, depending on which reader or publisher you talk to.  I’m going to take a bit of a break from the world of the Winter Kingdoms and Tris and the gang after this book, so finishing it makes me a little sad.  I have many other Winter Kingdoms stories in mind that I hope to write, but I’ve got a brand new series that I’m excited to write, and so that’s going to consume the next few books.  It’s definitely luminal space for me—one thing drawing to a hiatus while something else opens up.

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