Tips

5 Signs You’ve Gone Too Far With Your Fantasy Novel

Today, I share 5 signs you may have gone too far with your current fantasy novel.

Fiction writing requires a bit of immersion into you story. Fantasy requires an author put on a squirrel suit and jump in for a deeper excursion to truly get the experience necessary for bringing readers along for an entertaining ride. Here are 5 ways to know you’ve gone too far but I can’t tell you how to get back – that’s your own problem… However, I can offer a few suggestions that might help you re-gain perspective:

  1. One of your characters actually threatens you. Fantasy worlds are by their very nature dangerous, places that are unstable in any number of ways. That doesn’t even cover the places your characters travel and visit right through any number of dangerous scenes and settings. The nerves or your characters can easily get frayed and they may turn on you with whatever weapon they have at hand (and fantasy characters often have a weapon at hand). If you are in a bar or tavern, offer them a drink. If that fails, my advice is back away slowly, maybe with an apology for crowding them, and just shift to another scene. Maybe things will be a little less tense in another scene or the character will be too busy to notice you.
  2. You go drinking with your characters, have such a great time you wake up dressed like one of them and find you’ve been given a prized item that’s integral to the story. No, you can’t keep that gift so find a way to politely give it back and try not to go that deep with your characters again. It just gets awkward for you, the characters and the people around you in real life. Honestly, that’s getting a little off-balance.
  3. You go running and feel like you’re in that scene where there’s a devastating retreat. Take a deep breath, it’s ok, that’s just in the book. This is just exercise and there is no one chasing you with a battle-ax to grind. It’s just running. But it is good to keep in shape just in case you do need to retreat, right?
  4. You start speaking one of the languages used in your book. This is getting pretty serious since no one around you understands what you are saying. If you really keep going that deeply into the book, no one will be able to read it in that language. You might try getting out of your writing sphere and re-join the real world, try talking to someone about something trivial. Maybe watch some day-time TV – maybe.
  5. Maniacal laughter erupts from your lips as you near the end and kill a few beloved characters. Just back away from the computer, go do something else. It’s just a book. Deep breath. No, don’t go play that video game. Go to the museum or something. Just remember, you are not the villain here.

Notice: This is all tongue and cheek except my character threatening me since one of them is based on my dogs. However, my dogs just like to bark and growl for the fun of it so the first one really doesn’t count that much.

About the Author

I’m P. H. Solomon and I live in the greater Birmingham, AL area. I strongly dislike yard work and sanding the deck rail. However, I perform such duties to maintain a nice home for my loved ones as well as the family’s German Shepherds. In my spare time, I ride herd as a Computer Whisperer on large computers called servers (harmonica not required). Additionally, I enjoy reading, running, most sports and fantasy football. Having a degree in Anthropology, I also have a wide array of more “serious” interests in addition to working regularly to hone my writing. My third book of The Bow of Hart Saga fantasy series, The White Arrow, will be released October 2017. I’m also a contriubtor to Story Empire and a member of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).

This blog is about my writing, other authors, writing-related topics and my chosen genre – speculative fiction (science fiction and fantasy to be specific). Join me regularly as I highlight other writers and share my journey as an author. See my Contact page for more information.

What’s New for 2018 Part 1: This Site and New Groups

I’ve been taking my time assessing last year and planning for this year, partly because I’ve been sick but also because I’ve been assessing what directions I need to focus my efforts for 2018. Today, I’m addressing changes to my website/blog and tomorrow, I’ll get more detailed about my writing plans for the year than I did in my previous post.

Site Plans for 2018

I have a number of goals with this site that I’d like to address this year. I have previously posted a lot about Scrivener on my blog which has been great. However, since I’m contributing over on Story Empire with similar content, I’m going to post most of my new Scrivener tips there, leaving my site for more content around fiction – mine and whatever I run across.

As far as the site, I think I’ve outgrown the current free-hosted model so, as the year progresses, I’ll likely migrate toward a self-hosted site. I simply need the ability to do more with this site than in previous years which requires the flexibility to work with more plug-ins and widgets than currently available. WordPress’s free-hosted model has been an incredible help for almost 4 years now but it’s time to grow and develop the site further.

Regarding content, my plan is to offer more news about my writing as I have several projects in the works (more about them tomorrow). Additionally, I want to post more commentaries about my published books and other fun tidbits around them. I plan to post these types of blogs on Thursdays much like this one though with some variety. Also look for plenty of posts from my feature, “Fantasy Authors Unplugged” as I am able to find guest posts or interviews from other authors or people related to speculative fiction. I hope to have a few starting this month as time allows.

On Tuesdays, I want to take some of my short stories and post them as serials for readers to enjoy. I have a number of stories just lying around doing nothing and gathering digital dust so they may as well be brushed up and posted to be read which is what was intended for them. Look for one to begin next Tuesday.

I’ll continue post the Fun Friday feature where I’ll mix in some polls, writing ideas and a few, fun oddball notions otherwise.

Other Developments

Also this year, I’m starting a couple of groups for readers to join for preview content of books and even some ARC opportunities. One group is under development on Facebook. I’ll announce that as soon as I have it ready to go.

The other group is underway as a Q&A group on Goodreads which I posted about last week. This is a place where anyone can join and ask me questions about The Bow of Hart Saga. I’ll host Q&A’s several times this year as there are new developments with books and releases. If you are interested in the current on just click the button on the right for more information.

Additionally, I may host a more private group on Goodreads like the one on Facebook where readers can enjoy alpha/beta content, provide feedback and receive ARCs and other freebies.

Overall, the year should be busy and fun with a number of new developments with my website, blog and groups. Join me tomorrow as I reveal my specific writing plans for the year. Thanks for reading today. Feel free to leave you questions and thoughts in the comments section and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

More Project Tracking in Scrivener with Meta-Data

Scrivener is a powerful writing tool. I write about it weekly with tips and usage ideas. To read more of my posts click the Scrivener tag or category at the end of the page.

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I’ve written about the Inspector a number of times over the last few months. Just to re-cap, the Inspector is the bar on the right side of the editor. Once turned on, the Inspector allows you to work with various forms of meta-date in your project. What’s meta-data? It’s a way of making comments about your work for tracking purposes. Examples are the synopsis, document notes, document references, keywords, snapshots and comments & footnotes. But there are a few more aspects of meta-data to explore.

How to turn on the Inspector bar

How to turn on the Inspector bar

Scriv Meta Data

The General Meta-Data and Define Meta-Data Fields panes in the Inspector

First, on the Inspector, the General Meta-Data is almost always available (except in Snapshots and Comments). You can label a document with color or indicate the status of your document based on a number of criteria. Below you indicate when the document was created or modified. Use the check boxes to include the document in compile, set a page break before the document or compile it as-is. All this is pretty straightforward – use these settings to mark your progress. These can be viewable in different ways from the Outliner, Corkboard and Binder.

Next, there’s customizing Meta-Data which allows you to add categories to label and status lists. Clicking over to the Custom Meta-Data button on the Inspector menu reveals a button named Define Meta-Data Fields. From this window the Status and Label lists can be managed in addition to your custom meta-data. Again these are valuable for how you track progress in your projects.

I’ve found general meta-data useful for updating the progress of any document including a chapter, short story, blog post, blog tour and anything else on which I’m working. It’s a useful and easy way to track your work and customizing is even more useful. It’s one more way the Inspector is as powerful as the Binder.

Scriv Customize MD

Customize Meta-Data

Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments section.

IMG_4154-EditAbout the Author

P. H. Solomon lives in the greater Birmingham, AL area where he strongly dislikes yard work and sanding the deck rail. However, he performs these duties to maintain a nice home for his loved ones as well as the family’s German Shepherds. In his spare time, P. H. rides herd as a Computer Whisperer on large computers called servers (harmonica not required). Additionally, he enjoys reading, running, most sports and fantasy football. Having a degree in Anthropology, he also has a wide array of more “serious” interests in addition to working regularly to hone his writing. The Bow of Destiny is his first novel-length title with more soon to come.

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Just as a note: I now have a marketing affiliation with Scrivener. For support questions, pricing, licensing and other concerns please contact the vendor. As such a buy ad for Scrivener appears on the sidebar. I’ve started this program　since I like the product so much and want to offer readers the chance to obtain this software. I’m not required to write about Scrivener to be an affiliate; I just like it that much. You can also find my FTC statement on this site’s sidebar.