Writing Wild with Verna McKinnon

  How Many Characters Before Chaos? Here's the problem all writers face. Often when we are creating our tales, we create great characters which we love. You adore them (or love to hate them) and formulate their looks, history, loves, food choices, fashion, and everything important. But you can have too much of a good thing. One caution I would share is to define your story early on and determine if you have too many characters to keep track of. Sometimes it can be confusing for the reader.  I will admit I have been guilty of this in the past. I love my characters, but they can get lost in the story of you have so many in a tale. When I was a novice writer, and especially for those of us who create epic fantasy series, it so tempting to have a cast of multiple characters in the novel. That is fine, but you need to review if you have too many. I have learned over my years of writing sometimes you need to step back and seriously consider if you need to take out som...

Novel Quest: The Importance of Characters! When creating any story, the most important thing to me are my characters. Great dialogue is key too, but that is another post. A great character can pull you into a story, making the journey a wonderful experience. They drive the story. You can write tons of battle scenes, create an elaborate plot, and threaten the world, but without wonderful characters, you're screwed. The creation of great characters is an individual thing for most writers. My characters, like my tales, are fully developed entities with a soundtrack and wardrobe detail.  Often when writing a scene after doing painstaking outlines and chapter setups, a minor character will spring to life and demand to be in the tale. This happened to me with  my Familiar's Tale series. Both Darcus and Princess Opaline were drafted as minor characters, but they became integral to the story. It worked. With my new novel in progress, The Bastard Sorceress , Sabi...

Novel Quest #1 The Coffee, Chocolate, &Insanity Equation By Verna McKinnon Okay, I'm going to try to do more blog posts about writing-specifically the process of writing a novel in progress and share my process with you. It will be as I create a specific novel in fact: The Bastard Sorceress. I will share the frustrations and glories as I create my newest novel and lead heroine. Yes, because in my writing universe, heroines rule. I do have heroic men in my tales, but the central character in most of my novels are female. In fantasy and science fiction, I feel I can break free of the tropes given to women in traditional novels. Good storytelling is also key. Make them interesting and toss out stereotypes. Experiment. Write. And write some more. The Bastard Sorceress is a fantasy novel about a young woman named Sabine Fable. Yes, she is a bastard, but that is only the tip of the wand for my heroine's story arc. She has many troubles and is hopele...

Hi All: As I am learning about doing supplemental ads for my novels, I find it can be fun. This is my promo for Tree of Bones, A Familiar's Tale, Book 2. Not perfect, but I think it fits the mood.

Hello Familiar Friends! I have been learning the daunting task of creating my own promos for my books. I did another new ad for Bardess of Rhulon and one for my Gate of Souls! Feel free to share these! What do you think? I swear, this is harder than writing a novel!

  I am excited to announce the release of my newest fantasy novel, Bardess of Rhulon, now available for pre-order on Amazon! To order the Kindle edition, follow the link, https://amzn.to/2O4C8IJ  I am thrilled about this new book because it introduces a new story and new characters! You will meet my main character, Rose Greenleaf, a vibrant and spunky heroine who dreams of becoming a bard and risks everything to follow her calling. Her new path leads her to adventure and new friends, but danger from unseen enemies at the court where she gains the patronage of Prince Culain Ironheart.  I hope you love the tale. I will keep you updated on news for the paperback edition release. Until then, read more fantasy! Cheers, Verna McKinnon    

Lately, I have read blogs and articles about the role of women in my chosen genre, fantasy and science fiction. This includes both the authors and the characters/tales. For women authors, the genre is full of fabulous women. I do know there has been cases where women who submitted with a male name instead of a female have gotten better responses. This sucks, and needs to stop. It is not everywhere or everyone, but even a little bit of this attitude needs to stop...now. I command it. I am not sure why there is still a lingering attitude, but then the publishers are run on corporate ideals bot just or creative ideals. You can say the same for Hollywood. it is not whether the project is good or well cast, but how much money it will make. When I read an article about a female author who submitted to agents and was refused, but when she submitted the same material with a male name, she got good responses. Women have always suffered from the double standard. We need to keep fight...

Hello Familiar Friends: It has been a long time since I posted a blog. I have been very involved with a lot of things, mostly writing new tales and attempting to master social media to promote sales for my two books out there in the abyss of Amazon. I have wondered if it was worthwhile to continue blogging with the mass of social media swarming around us.  Plus social media platforms like Facebook and twitter have been a storm of political chaos, which had me in its grasp too. But, maybe it is? I try to post interesting articles about my beloved fantasy and science fiction genre on Twitter and Facebook.  One article I ran across, which I shall not name, but a rather confusing article with a definite attitude about what strong women are and why aren't there any real strong women in science fiction and fantasy. There were other issued addressed in this person's blog-but first I want to address the point on strong women in fantasy and science fiction, or the lack there...