AW June Blog Chain

June’s Blog Chain is about presenting a scene that defines your main character’s attitude. I’ve selected a scene from my current MS, OVERCAST SHADOWS. He never knew what love was until around this scene...

Slowly they shuffled on the narrow, wooden pier, standing close to the middle so they wouldn’t fall into the deep, cold lake far below. The wooden structure ended after a few meters, at the spot where the executed bodies were thrown into the deep lake. The gusts of wind were cold and strong up on the pier, and Tiya grasped his hand tighter.



“We’ll have to jump and then swim to shore,” he told her.


“Is this the only way?” she asked as she looked up at his face, her eyes widened in fear. He looked down. The fall would be long and dark until they would hit the murky water.


“Yes, it is.” Vitiosus whispered. Tiya’s hair was tousling in the cool wind, her eyes shone in the dark and her lips were parted.


“I can’t,” she mumbled. They were standing so close to each other on the small walk bridge that Vitiosus could feel her warm breath against the skin of his cheek.


“Tiya, please…there is no other way.” Vitiosus took her shoulder gently and felt himself once again mesmerized by her honey brown eyes that were staring back at him.


“I ca—” Tiya whispered. She stopped when Vitiosus leaned in to kiss her. His heart was beating violently and his mind was swirling in confusion but it suddenly all felt right when their lips eagerly touched and his blood rushed through his body. It felt like the whole world was put on hold when Vitiosus put his arms around Tiya’s waist, hugging her more tightly as the wind blew around them. Tiya’s hands wrapped around him, and the wind surrounded them as one. After a long embrace, they reluctantly parted and gazed at each other in awe, each knowing that they had changed in some way. Vitiosus had never felt love before, and what he felt for Tiya was rushing through his blood in unstoppable waterfalls of emotions.


Tiya touched his cheek with her cold fingers, her eyes still glued to his and whispered, “If there is no other way, I will jump.”


Here is the list of participants to the June Blog Chain:

LadyMage: http://www.katherinegilraine.com/
FreshHell: http://freshhell.wordpress.com/
Collectonian: http://collectonian.livejournal.com/
Aimee Laine: http://www.aimeelaine.com/writing/blog
AuburnAssassin: http://clairegillian.wordpress.com/
Lyra Jean: http://lyratorres.wordpress.com/
Aheïla: http://thewriteaholicblog.wordpress.com/
ArcticFox: http://picaresqueblog.blogspot.com/
Fokker Aeroplanbau: http://rightfarright.blogspot.com/
Alpha Echo: http://writersramblings81.blogspot.com/
xcomplex: http://arielemerald.blogspot.com/ ME!!!
CScottMorris: http://cscottmorrisbooks.com/
egoodlett: http://wordlarceny.blogspot.com/
Lilain: http://abigailschmidt.blogspot.com/
defyalllogic: http://tavialewis.com/hyperbolicallyspeaking/
*RomanceWriter*: http://www.staceyespino.blogspot.com/
IrishAnnie: http://superpenpower.blogspot.com/
Anarchicq: http://anarchicq.com/
littlebear91: http://blog.littlebearz.com/
hillaryjacques: http://www.hillaryjacques.blogspot.com/
Proach: http://desstories.blogspot.com/

*If you didn't get a comment from me! I am reading all your posts now :)

World Building and Query Tuesdays!

I write mainly Fantasy and Science Fiction and World Building is a very important part of that genre. If say in fantasy you are setting the story in your own world, it is critical to describe the scenery, the smells, the unusual creatures, without over doing it. This is the trick and this is what we gotta do.


Personally I hate when world building is over done but also I hate when I pick up a book and after reading 30 damn pages, I still don't know what the hell a mesonur is (I still didn't find out by the way.) Maybe its the authors way of keeping us engaged in the book and making it interesting enough for us to want to find out what the heckle that is.

For me its essential to weave in exotic smells, noises and feelings that are only felt in my world, but with paragraphs of description we all start to skim through. So what is the key to world building even in non fantasy literature?

- Dropping key clues. Readers love clues and they do like to do some of the thinking work but hey, don't make them figure out what a mesonur is...That just isn't going to happen.

- Providing some background Information. Again don't over do it.

- Describing senses. Noises, feelings, voices, scents. It all brings us into your world.

- Appearance. Hey if you have gotten and rubber zombie (Whatever that is) as your lead character i want to know how it looks!

- buildings, Technology and Shrubbery even...Describe this all short and clear and again don't start talking about a shrub for ten pages. Been there done that. JK. Anyways that is my take on my world building, what's yours and have you read any books that throw you in and totally confuse you until the ends?

Query Tuesdays (That's tomorrow!)

And a little update for today. I got into contact with that guy that works at Penguin and he offered to critique 1 query every week on Tuesday! Isn't that awesome? I just got my query critiqued by him and it really helped, yet now comes revision time.

We can dissect it on my blog and you can get comments on what everyone thinks! His comments will be in red and I will add bits of mine in blue. So the way Query Tuesdays will work will be like so...Firstly Tuesday is tomorrow so I am not sure you guys will volunteer just yet, so if I won't get a query I won't send it his way or make a post, but if I will, yay! First come first serve here, I thought that would be fair. So whoever first sends a query to my e-mail at arielemerald (at) rocketmail (dot) com can get one tommorow. If you don't sorry, next week is always there. Also there will be a contest for him to critique a full proposal (query + 1st chapter) once I get 100 followers, so keep following and a big THANK YOU for following!