Tag: Contemporary Fantasy Author

I’ve been taking on writing challenges lately. My last foray gave me Torthal, and the mysteries outsiders have been unable to investigate. I spent most of July developing that story into an ongoing series. This month I’m starting a new adventure, the Centriole.

The Centriole is a building, but it’s also home to the Society for Exploration. They are a social club of interdimensional explorers, scientists, and adventurers. Together the Explorers have mapped, sampled, and catalogued trillions of worlds. In some cases they have acted as diplomats on behalf of their far more advanced civilization to other primitive cultures.

The Centriole exists in more than one dimension, but physically, it exists on the planet Fractal. The origin of the club’s charter members, and the original source of civilization throughout every iteration of the universe since they began keeping track of big bangs. Fractal is a ‘folded’ planet. The technology that allows a single building to house the Explorers Headquarters allows Fractal to house trillions of sentient beings.

Fractal is a unique world, connected to many other planets throughout this universe and many parallel realities. Through the Centriole and the Society for Exploration, the number of worlds connected to Fractal has continued to expand for hundreds of Universal Cycles. The destination of the latest expedition to leave the Centriole through it’s interdimensional Dive Chamber is a primitive backwater planet in an otherwise unremarkable galaxy called Earth.

1 – I really can come up with 365 things to write about. (Even when I’m sick.)

2 – I can never predict what will resonate more with my audience. Sometimes it’s a post about writing, sometimes it’s a poem. So I quit trying. I write and hope my meandering ideas are enjoyable to my audience.

3 – Research is critical to sharing authentic experiences. It is also a dangerous trap that can consume more time than the research is worth. It is better for me to research before I write than while I’m writing, but sometimes I don’t know what I need to research until I get to that point in my writing.

4 – Editing is best done after filling the sandbox. I need to throw everything I can think of onto the page before I start to polish anything. Most of the time I’ve found my best ideas come during the editing phase once I have a deeper appreciation for the characters, setting, and plot.

5 – Writing habits are a double edged sword. You can develop a terrific writing routine that works perfectly for you. If that routine is disrupted, it can ruin all your progress. I have to be flexible, and kind to myself if I don’t accomplish as much as I planned.

6 – Inspiration comes from literally everywhere. A song, a book, a movie, a TV show, a conversation, or any number of random thoughts can inspire me. Even weird dreams can spark my imagination in ways I hadn’t expected. I try not to close myself off to any avenue of inspiration.

7 – Hope, my muse. She is a generous but fickle mistress. Hope can give me everything I need, or withhold any words she might otherwise share. I still have to write whether she is cooperating or not. The only way to do that is to settle in and write. Procrastination won’t help, waiting for her to come along won’t work either. I have to write. Sooner or later she’ll peer over my shoulder and add more of her influence to what I’m working on.

8 – Updates about what I’m writing are more interesting to me than to my readers. They want a finished product, not my gushing excitement about the latest chapter or short story I am writing.

9 – Querying is my greatest struggle. Writing a book, or a series of short stories is easy. Finding a publishing professional who believes in that work, and will work with me to build a business relationship together is far more difficult. I’m still searching.

10 – New work is always going to come from sitting at my desk. Even if I scribble a note for later, or jot down ideas on my phone. The outlines, timelines, and actual prose comes from planting my butt in the chair and writing. Nothing else will substitute for that.

11 – Reviewing where I’m at is helpful, but only to show me what else I can accomplish. I can’t navigate in reverse all the time, planning where to go based on what I’ve already done works. I won’t limit my vision based on where I’ve already been either though.

12 – Using the real world versus my version. Early on while I was writing Fantastic America, I got a lot of feedback about setting my books in a different version of the real world that didn’t use actual living people, businesses, and so on. I resisted. That was in my mind, part of the appeal of the stories happening in a contemporary setting. Once I embraced the idea, my version of the real world made the story better. I was free to manipulate the world we all know and fit my story into better settings, with better characters, and a history that preserved my ideas.

13 – Poetry has been my communication style of choice since I was in high school. I drifted away from it, but always circle back to some couplet or another. Sharing my poetry has not always been a great experience. Friends and family may love my words, but I’m convinced professional poets are on a different level than most humans.

14 – Writing during the pandemic. Lockdown hasn’t felt all that constrictive. I’ve gone where I wanted to for the most part, and done the same kinds of things. I’ve lost friends to the virus, but for the most part, I’ve stayed safe. I wouldn’t wish the kind of suffering it causes on anyone.

15 – People love lists. One of my go to blog ideas is to write a list of things people might enjoy. This post is one of those lists, in fact. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. As I close in on 365 posts in a row, I thought it would be a good idea to examine more than just how these posts were viewed. I enjoyed writing it, looking for details from other blog posts to create it, and sharing it with the folks who follow my posts. Thanks!

In the world of Fantastic America, wizards of the last magical age created familiars. These were human followers who were drawn to serve a specific wizard. Each kind of wizardry has a ritual for this purpose. In general, the wizards and familiar entered into a pact. A magical contract where the wizard empowered a newly created familiar with abilities from their kind of magic. In return, the familiar was linked to the wizard and pledged allegiance to them and their interests.

Each kind of wizardry created a specific kind of familiar. Life wizards created paladins who defend life and impose order. Sorcerers created apprentices who seek knowledge above all else. Aqueous wizards created water warriors who prefer to spend their time beneath the waves. Necromancers created obedient fiends who stalk prey for their cruel masters. Lithic wizards created beast lords who in turn, bonded to one or more land dwelling animals to protect their wizard. Fire wizards created hellions to burn away weakness and sow chaos.

All familiars created this way have a single overriding mission. To protect and serve their wizard. The pact that empowers them continues till the death of the wizard or the familiar. Though in practice, the familiar often died at the same time or just before their wizard. The ritual that empowers them does not remove free will from the familiar, but it does subtly influence their behavior.

In the world of the Magic Unleashed series, wizards have yet to re-discover familiars and their empowering rituals. Readers won’t encounter their fist familiars until book two of the series, Midwestern Magicians. Like familiars of old, those with a calling will seek out a wizard and make a pact. Their power comes at the price of unswerving loyalty, but it is one they are willing to pay.

Coming up with interesting topics every day has been exhausting. Sometimes, I’ve needed help. I’ve scoured other bloggers posts for ideas, and read lists of their favorite topics. Not all of that has helped or made into this blog. But I have managed to get a post of some kind rounded up for almost 365 days in row now!

That may not be a huge accomplishment, but I’m excited to cross it off my writing bucket list. I have no idea if I’ll post that frequently after I pass the one year mark, but right now I’m leaning towards cutting back to one post a week. Maybe special posts for special events or announcements. That makes more sense to me.

I have more projects coming up too. Gari in Torthal is continuing his journey. As the plot has expanded, I’ve needed to rewrite his introduction story in, “Gari and the Pox”. Expect an update for that when I have it polished up. I’m working on some new short stories unrelated to Gari or my Magic Unleashed series. The ideas are still percolating, but I’m excited to share more about them as they come together.

I’m also still querying agents for Fantastic America. The process is torturous for me, but I’m a glutton for punishment, I guess. My critique group is also still writing and critiquing. We added a new member this week, so I’m excited to read her work. I have plenty to keep me busy at any rate. And I’ll have more to post about now that I have all these projects coming together.

Magic, or the potential for magic, is always present in the world of my debut novel, Fantastic America. Even in the bleak times of no magic, there are means (some more abhorrent than others) to work magic. The majority of these means are difficult to achieve, or unpredictable in nature. This is especially true considering most of the knowledge was passed down in spoken form. Writing actual magical instructions poses numerous dangers, some more obvious than others.

Still, magic is powerful, when it works, even in the bleak times. Traditions from all over the world have persisted, despite the dangers their knowledge represented, with wildly different mystical practices. Most of these groups adopted some form of secrecy to maintain their legacy. Few of them retained a full understanding of magic in the absence of flows from other worlds.

The return of those magic flows to the modern world, brings a new dilemma to people who still hold any magical knowledge from long ago. They must decide whether to remain in hiding or reveal themselves to the world at large. For most, enforced secrecy is too integral to their identity, and sustained magic is too new to reveal themselves. However, the best laid plans of mice and men…

Summer in Iowa is a little different from the season I grew up with in North Carolina. There isn’t as much shade in the middle of farmland as there was under the pine forests I wandered in as a child. That said, Summer is still my favorite season. Seeing it draw to a close is bittersweet for me this year.

Until this year, my son spent the season with us before going back to school in Colorado. This year he’s more focused on the next steps in his life and I’ve missed him terribly. In his absence, the house has been filled with grand children, there have still been hours of pool parties, and visits by friends. Cook outs, story time by the fire, and our annual Fourth of July party also bounced back from the pandemic.

One thing that has been missing over the past few weeks (or longer) is new fiction writing on my part. I wrote the introduction to Gari on Torthal, and am rewriting that. Otherwise, I haven’t put nearly the effort into new writing that I expect. I plant my butt in the chair as always, but I’ve worked on other projects. I’ve caught up on critiques, read books on my TBR, and found every other excuse to keep busy without writing new material.

The end of Summer means the house will quiet down again. Kids go back to school, my wife goes back to teaching, and maybe the solitude will help me get back to what I love, creating new adventures. The characters are there, my muse is patiently waiting, and new worlds await my fingers on the keyboard. I’ll be sorry to see the cold weather return, but I’ll be glad to get back to the strange company I keep with my stories.

I write every day. At least the post for this blog. I may not post here every day for the rest of my life, but I’m almost to the end of a 365 day cycle. I wanted to prove to myself that I could write original content every day for a year. Like Bruce said, “I see this as an absolute win!”

Most days, I also work on other projects. I still have my toes in the water for Ashley Monahan and Fantastic America, and more than that in Gari Garcia in Torthal (a project that is changing as I write it). I also read and write critiques with partners in a couple of groups each week. So I’m never far from my keyboard for long.

Good Habits are helpful.

That brings me to the topic for this post, the habits you develop as you write can help or hurt your writing. Every author is different, like every person is unique, but there are a few constants in writing that I’ve found helpful. There are far more that I’ve found distracting or harmful, but I’ll get to them in a minute.

The first helpful habit to get into is the most basic advice I give throughout all my posts, write. Put your butt in a chair (or on the floor or stand if you have to) and put words on the page. Daily. It may help to write at the same time every day, structure is great for many writers. But I write at any time of the day or night that suits my lifestyle. Each to their own in how you live and fit writing into that life. Just write.

I need peace and quiet to write, my wife and I have a lot of grandchildren here in the summer, so that time is precious to me. If you need quiet to focus on your words, find some. Children sleep, pets sleep (we have four dogs and two cats), and devices can be silenced. There have been times, I had to get work done but couldn’t wait for quiet to fall at our house. Headphones and music is a good substitute for me, at least it masks the majority of the chaos around me.

Bad habits can ruin the best of intentions.

Procrastination is my kryptonite. The worst excuse I make about writing is to put it off for some other task, or to find a reason I can’t put words on the page. Most of it is nonsense, and this is true of most of the procrastination in my life. Once I am in motion to get something done, it takes far less time and effort than I built up in my resistance. But that brings me to another point, resistance.

Resistance in writing usually has another source. I hesitate to write a scene I’m not completely comfortable with, or tackle a project I haven’t thoroughly examined in my mind’s eye. Uncertainty can manifest as doubt, it can cause delays or avoidance (for me) to even attempt to write. So I spend some time examining where resistance is coming from.

Outlining helps me overcome this problem, I can settle the doubts with a plan and get words on the paper. They don’t always survive, but effort build momentum, writing and rewriting move me toward completion. Even if the words are terrible, I’ve found what doesn’t work, and can write something else till I find something that does work.

Find what works for you.

Develop your routine with what you want to accomplish in mind. I have a different mindset for ‘exploratory writing’ on a new subject versus the sandbox method I use while writing the first draft of a novel (pile everything you can into the sandbox edit it later). Both of which are different from blogging, writing poetry, or editing work that needs more attention. Only you can find the methods that fit your writing style.

Maybe you need to shut off devices, close browser windows, and tune out the world around you to do your best writing. Music in the background (or other noises) may help you. Turn off your phone, or set a timer if you think you might write for too long (gasp!). Read blogs to find other suggestions, for every problem you encounter, another writer ahs probably written about their experience along the same line. Help is out there, if you seek it out.

Ultimately, my advice is unchanged. Write. Write well. Repeat until you have something to share with the world. Find people and places to share. Then write more and share that, too. Writing can be solitary, but it doesn’t have to be. In fact, I’ve found the best of my writing came when I planned to share it with the world. You may find the same thing.

This is the opposite of the Chosen One. An ordinary person sees a need and steps up to help. They don’t have an agenda, or ulterior motives, just a sense of right over wrong. Maybe it stems from all the 80’s movies I watched as a kid. The group or lone wolf who wants to change the world for the better still resonates with me.

Destiny forces the Chosen One into saving the world. The reluctant hero decides they have a moral obligation to risk life and limb. Of the two, I’d prefer the latter over the former. Both are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. The reluctant hero can be any of us though. The Chosen One is set apart. Destiny doesn’t care how they feel about it.

I’ve lost track of how many Chosen Ones bemoaned their fate. “Why me? I didn’t choose this!” The Reluctant hero doesn’t ask why me, they ask, “If not me, who will?” It has a more honest, more human, feeling to how any of us might respond given the situation. That is the core of the idea for me. Whether it’s the lone office worker stopping tanks on their way to Tiananmen Square, or the guy fed up with red tape taking on the system directly, defiance is my jam.

I’m not trying to encourage random acts of violence either. The movie, Turk 182 comes to mind when I think of this trope. Non-violent protest and civil disobedience can still bring change. It may not be as sexy as a kill-dozer, but not every story has to include death, destruction, and mayhem.

In my lived experience, the right person, in the right place, at the right time, can make change happen. Others have to embrace what begins with one voice. The chorus is powerful because they sing together, not because of the soloist. No matter how great that single voice may be.

I’m on the writing spectrum some where in between a pantser and a plotter. I like have things planned out, but I also like to see where the flow of words will go naturally. When I wrote the short story introducing Gari and Torthal, I pantsed. When I started a follow up story, expanding on that introduction, I tried to pants it again, but failed. So now I’m plotting out his next series of adventures.

So here I am, writing a new story bible, filling in the blanks I left, and following an outline. Gari has a bigger story to tell (or show) than I expected. One that is appropriate for the times we are living through. Although he is as far from those events and ideas as possible, the world seen through his eyes will be hauntingly familiar. Gari examines prejudice, fear of change, and what it means to be human. Heady ideas indeed!

I’ve also expanded my ideas for Torthal. The kernel was already there in, “Gari and the Pox”. Now I have a deeper purpose behind how I approach this strange new world, and the distant civilization it represents. The world of Torthal will be a character in Gari’s story as much as any person he encounters.

But my revision of the second installment is where my mind is right now. I want to bring the world to life around Gari, and my first attempt fell far short of that. The great thing about words on the page is that they can be rewritten, deleted, or replaced with new words. So that is what I’ll be doing for a while, rewriting for Gari’s sake.

Not that my head had grown too big for my hat, lately. If it had, one of the writers groups I’m in would gladly have brought me back down a size. Having critique partners is invaluable. Not only have I learned more about writing from them, but they’ve kept me grounded after making progress.

There is a kind of magic critique groups can wield. When you find a group that wants everyone to improve, whose members offer more than a casual read of your work, that’s golden. The best critique groups lift up writers who are struggling to find their voice, and share the tools to set them free.

Admittedly there is some terrible advice out there. Some writers have it all figured out, and anything that upsets their view cannot be tolerated. Others honestly believe every rule they learned should be followed every single time they write. Grammar trumps story for these folks, but they are pretty easy to spot. When you find them (especially if they are running the group) RUN!

I can’t stress enough, especially for new writers just starting out, find your tribe. There are people out there who want to hear you, who need to hear you. Those people will enrich your life as much as you will theirs, but you have to make your way out of the wilderness. You have to sort through the good and bad advice, learn the fundamentals, more than just mechanics. Then you’ll be able to reach the readers who need you.

In my quest to write stories that entertain readers, I often go through multiple iterations of the same ideas. Sometimes I mix and match those ideas to give them a fresh look or spin. But in the end they are just variations on a theme.

The worst situation I find myself in as a writer, is when the mixing and matching has written me into a corner. Complex situations make it problematic for me, even if it’s not always a problem for the characters. When I’ve had some time to sort out why a scene is bothering me, it usually comes down to unnecessary complexity.

More than a few times I have leaned into that preposterous complexity. It can be fun to see how absurd I can take an idea while keeping it somewhat believable. The easiest solution is usually to cut out the complications and simplify everything. Easier, from an editing point of view, but not from a writing perspective.

I the Magic Unleashed series, the first four books in the series happen at roughly the same time. Scenes from one book have immediate repercussions in the other books. The characters don’t all meet right away, or interact much at first, but when they do, it caused me some logistical problems. How does character A get to location B in only X number of hours? Can they still be back in location Y in time for event 76? Spreadsheets saved the day, but so far, it’s taken almost a month to reconcile everything.

A few years ago, the Chosen One trope was all the rage in fiction. Rand Al’thor was the Dragon Reborn, Neo was The One, and a kid from under the stairs was about to take on He Who Shall Not Be Named. Readers loved it, for a while.

Today the trope has fallen out of favor, and I for one, am happy to keep it that way. Even as a child, I didn’t appreciate the idea of predetermined destiny or fate. I remember reading Shakespeare in high school, and my English teacher explained the Fates and Furies to the class. A lot of the really terrible poetry I wrote after that included lines about fighting against both concepts.

In the Magic Unleashed series, I turn the Chosen One trope on it’s head a couple of times. One Chosen One is a villain, chosen to wreak havoc on the living. Another character believes the lie that he is the chosen one. He’s just being manipulated, but he wants to believe he’s special. Both characters challenge any notion that destiny is unavoidable. Like Captain Kirk in the Kobayashi Maru simulation, I prefer to make my own luck.

There is enough cause and effect in the world to consign ideas about fate and destiny to the books of the past. Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence. In my limited experience, the universe doesn’t make a habit of aligning to create a perfect situation that can only be solved by a single special individual. I understand why that trope is popular, and I’m sure many authors out there still have Chosen One stories to write. I’m just not one of them.

Or in the Magic Unleashed series, Necromancy. Death Magic is a spiritual force, that opposes Life Magic. Other magic users universally shun Necromancy. Unlife, a major component of Death magic, is a corruptive source of misery for all living things. In combat, necromancers rely on undead minions under their direct control, along with constructs and weapons of hardened shadow.

Necromancers are at home among graveyards, mausoleums, and forsaken ruins. While most Death Magic spellwork requires fresh corpses or living victims, any dead flesh will do in a pinch. Only carrion eaters and animals that assist decomposition will reluctantly answer a Necromancer’s call for aid.

One of many horrifying practices of Death wizards is haruspicy. This is a type of scrying that uses the still warm liver and entrails to seek hidden knowledge. Like other forms of scrying, the necromancer may glimpse the future, lost things, or learn new skills. Haruspicy is intuitive, but also relies on the intention of the haruspex and what they seek.

Readers will meet fledgling Necromancer Vincent Deveraux in book four of the Magic Unleashed series, Raising New Orleans. Formerly a morgue worker and mortuary student, Vincent is initially unaware of the changes around him. He has a potent advantage over other newly empowered magic users. The ghost of Marie Laveau is his mentor in the collection and use of unlife.

Or in the Magic Unleashed series, Water Wizardry. Aqueous magic is an elemental force, the opposite of Fire magic. Water, and the creatures who live beneath its surface respond to water wizards. In combat, Aqueous wizards manipulate water and dissipate heat to wield both liquid water and ice as potent weapons.

Water wizards are at home on or beneath any body of water, but prefer the open sea where their power is greatest. On land, Water magic is limited by the supply of water or ice available. Creatures who make their home in or near water are responsive to the call of Aqueous wizards, and will help them if asked (or in predators cases, commanded).

Water wizards also have access to water scrying. By entering a trancelike state, Aqueous wizards can use water as a medium to find lost things, learn new skills, and see possible future events. These visions are unpredictable, and only as reliable as the intention of the scryer. But they do offer glimpses of what may become reality.

Readers will meet Aqueous wizard Mariah Davis, a marine biologist PHD candidate. She is on sabbatical when magic returns to the Earth in book three of the Magic Unleashed series, The Steaming South. Mariah embraces her watery gifts and makes a scientific study of her newfound powers. She is the first modern wizard to write grimoire of her spellwork.

This isn’t about manifesting your dreams into reality. I have author friends who are all about that woo-woo mindset matters business. This is about how parts of dreams I have make their way into my stories.

I don’t remember everything I dream about, but I can lucid dream on occasion. When my mind isn’t too lazy to put in the effort at least, I have vivid dreams. Some of those dreams involve fairly complex plots, interesting characters, and wild action scenes. Those are the ones I wake trying to scribble down details from before I forget them.

I don’t keep a regular dream journal, that may be a thing for some people, but not me. Instead, I have a note pad app on my phone. If I have a really intense dream, or remember some crazy plotline, those go into the app as fast as I can type. I don’t keep my phone by my bed, so sometimes i still scribble notes while I’m half asleep.

My subconscious is sometimes even more creative than I am. At least I feel that way when a fully developed story plays out through a long winter’s nap. Some of the best ideas in the Magic Unleashed series came from dreams. Either as I woke up, or more often as I’m trying to drift off to sleep. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve had to jump out of bed to jot down the perfect solution to a writing problem. What a terrible problem to have.

That means he went to church every Sunday, hours before that week’s worship service (even while he was a prisoner of war in world war two). His achievement is an extraordinary level of dedication and testament of his faith. My grandmother, his sister, always held up his example when I complained about going with her to Sunday school and church.

Here’s something I realized many years ago. Despite the inspiring accomplishment that Uncle Julian achieved so many years in a row, he wasn’t always a shining light in our family. He never married, lived an austere life that suited his devotion, but was often bitter for reasons I can only begin to imagine. Julian lived in the same home he grew up in for most of his life.

More than his faith and attendance, I remember him being mean to his adult sisters. I didn’t like that, and told him so whenever I visited. He was a hard worker, retiring from the same job he’d started before WWII in the late 1990’s. He stayed busy after retiring, spent even more time at church, or helped as he could in the small community where he lived most of his life.

I relate this little bit of family history because like my Uncle Julian, the characters I write about are complex. Individuals are seldom one or two dimensional characters, and that holds true for the people in my stories. Uncle Julian had great faith and determination, but he held anger and resentment that our family endured the six days a week he wasn’t at church.

Or in the Magic Unleashed series, Life magic. As the name implies, Life magic is primarily a force for healing. It’s practitioners also possess a wide range of combat abilities, mainly for fighting the undead (Necromancy) and creatures of Chaos (Fire magic). Life wizards are champions of order. They can manipulate hardened light to create weapons, defenses, and perform rituals the promote peace and health.

Life magic has several peculiarities that set it apart from other kinds of magic. Augury, or the interpretation of sky signs and bird behaviors. Auspices take the form of weather, and the behavior of individual birds and flocks. All these signs and portents speak to Life wizards and inform their decision making.

Another trait unique to Life wizards is long lasting youth and beauty. Because they work directly with health and life itself, Celestial wizards age more slowly than other mortals. Their joy for living also makes them charismatic and attractive to others. But like all magic users, Life wizards do age and eventually die.

Readers will meet Elizabeth Fairchild in the second book in the series, Midwestern Magicians. She is learning how to use her powers along with all the other wizards in the series. Her experiences with healing, fighting the undead, and coming to terms with how magic is changing her are just the beginning of her story.

I have a lot on my plate lately, but I’m still writing, still querying, and still sharing my progress here. Fantastic America is my priority as a finished novel, but I’ve also put the manuscript aside lately to build up Gari’s adventures in the strange world of Torthal. I have a dozen other ideas for stories I’ve held off on while I worked on FA , but I will be writing more of those stories soon.

I feel like I’m closer than ever to a solid query, and I’m anxious to move forward with it. I’m also putting my short story hat back on. I’m plotting out several new stories in both the Magic Unleashed series and unrelated stories I’ve just not had the chance to work on lately. Summer is busy, but I can’t help but write when my muse pours the words on the page for me.

Overall, I’m happy with how my work is going. The ideas I’m experimenting with are fun, and the chills are multiplying as the ideas coalesce. New characters are taking shape, and the scenes in my head are making it onto the page (even though some are just outlines right now). I’ll share more here as I can.

An author’s voice comes through once a writer learns who they are and how they speak (or write) to their audience. It’s a beautiful thing to find your voice and lift it up for the world to hear. Author intrusion is totally different and jarring to readers. It can pull them out of an otherwise well written and enjoyable story.

There are certainly times when authors intentionally addresses their audience. Done well, this can enhance a story, add layers to the world the reader is immersed in, and provide deeper insight into t atopic. Author intrusion is NOT that situation, it’s usually an accident on the author’s part, and adds little or nothing to the story.

Here are some examples: Offering direct opinions, screwing up the Point of View, or screwing up the setting (description or interactions). Each is a mistake (often a simple oversight). I’ve been guilty of some of these, but try to catch them whenever I can. There are a lot more, but this gives you a place to start looking for them.

Offering Direct Opinions

A character is engaged in some detail of the story, they are busy describing whatever that is, and out of no where, think something uncharacteristic. This can be an observation about how unfair life is, how difficult the situation is, or how tragic the outcome may be. If the character wouldn’t think these thoughts without the writer over their shoulder, they shouldn’t think it at all. This ruins the illusion of free agency at least, or throws an unfamiliar attitude at the audience at worst.

As authors, we try to get inside the characters we create to bring them to life. If a character is significantly like the author in the real world, it can be easy to toss our personal impressions to that character without anyone noticing. When the character is distinctly different from the author, the intrusion is even more apparent, and jarring to the reader.

Screwing up the Point of View

This is related to opinions, but different enough to get individual treatment. Unique POV is paramount in effective modern day storytelling. A character has to offer readers a perspective only that voice can bring them. A lens through which the details of a story are filtered and focused. Messing that up with extra tidbits is a sure way to ruin that perspective.

Authors spend hours crafting world, scenes, and moving characters through plot events. Invariably some of that work is left out of the story, but remains lodged in our minds. When that bit of background flotsam makes it onto the page anyway, I’ve screwed up the point of view. This is jarring too, especially if it’s out of step with the POV character’s persona or experience.

Screwing up the Setting

This is close to the POV but specific to the setting in a scene or the whole story. Authors love to show off the world they’ve built (me included). So much so, that if we aren’t careful the characters may show knowledge they couldn’t possibly have about it. If a character spills a secret that the author wants the audience to know, they’ve violated this principle of author intrusion.

I caught myself doing this after a fight scene not long ago. The characters are talking after it’s over, and one remarked about how well the other fought. The problem there was that this character never saw the other attack. So their commentary was out of place, no one else in my beta read or challenge group caught this. But I found it and fixed it, because I knew how jarring it would be for anyone else who figured that out.

Readers will give an author wide leeway in how their characters interact, but there has to be internal consistency to maintain that leeway. Writers can ruin a suspension of disbelief with any of these mistakes. Catching them before they have the chance to do that is part of our job as writers.