Hi Dee: Thanks for being with me on SlipperyWords! We are talking about The Use: Changing Magic Book 1. I thought this was a really 
fun book. It is a rollicking sexy romp through a time and place where elves, humans and magic reign. And you are working on book 2, so those that love this book…another two books are coming.
- You take some common tropes and then place them into a new world to see what would happen. Tropes like the damsel in distress that is more than she seems, the wise older man who yearns for someone to love him, etc. What made you want to stay with common characterizations but place them in a setting of your imagination?Writers are advised to “write what they know”. What is actually meant is write what your reader will identify with and want to know more about. You have to start with vaguely familiar ground to avoid offending and distancing your reader from the start. It is all very well to have giant green monsters ravaging the country side but you have to have common ground – A word or idea so the reader can empathize with the struggle. If you are a giant green man fighting a small vegetarian oppressor who owns a butter franchise then your reader will laugh and line up alongside the oversized underdog and cheer for his eventual freedom.
When you have stopped laughing…. okay. Actually, I am aware that people are complicated. I like to make worlds where ordinary people can do extraordinary things because, in fact, they do.
I have written sci fi fan fic from the POV of the cleaning woman and regency stories from the POV of a talking dog. Life is complicated and fun when you let the ordinary people who will lift up cars from imprisoned children and run from Athens to Marathon to end a war tell their stories.
- I’ve been talking about a new genre that we have labelled librarypunk. I think your book could be a part of it since libraries and the knowledge hidden in books is an important concept. (you can see my blogpost about librarypunk)
Literacy is important. The invention of writing came alongside the invention of civilization. If we didn’t have libraries then every generation would have to re-invent the simplest things. It is only by building on the knowledge of those who have gone before that we can discover, invent, learn, grow – etc. etc.
In the real world – when I was very young I lived in the outback of Australia. The library came to our house once a month. A truck with sides that folded out. It was amazing and annoying. I was a child so only permitted three picture books. I sympathize with Yental who had to put up with “Picture books for women, scripture books for men.” I’ve been reading on my own since three. I read very fast. Very fast and wanted more. It was when I was a child that I started writing stories. My mother would watch me read a book and then go outside and walk in circles telling myself stories. of what came next. I still go to the library even though it is harder for me to read books on paper nowadays.
I also collect, and save my energy for, antique books. I have medical texts published in the 1840’s and an early encyclopedia for “Persons of the Professional Class” from 1812. If it weren’t for someone’s private library being sold I wouldn’t have these gems.
- Will we see more of the Lady’s guards in books 2 and 3? They are a lot of fun.Morae Noname will be an important character in book three and will experience a life changing event. The other guards will earn their own happiness even if I have to write short stories for them. They are, amazingly, very, very popular with the readers. The most difficult character I have invented in this universe is Norfarland the Bastard. My publisher wants me to write an actual Adventure and I cringe at the thought.
then again… hmmmm
- I can’t wait to meet this baby. Am I right to assume that he/she is quite special?
The baby is a baby and is special to his family. It is likely, given the plotting of existing and next books, that the baby won’t even be born by the end of the last book in the series. His/her parents won’t mind as long as he/she has fingers, toes, etc.
5. What other books have you published or are working on in this same genre?
I have the World Wide Witches Research Association and Pinochle Club trilogy – first book is out. Second book is in re-write hell. First book – First Destroy All Giant Monsters is out on ebook and a load of fun.
Also going with paranormal but in the so called human world is The Adventures of a Super Hero’s Insurance Adjuster – I’ll let you think about the title for a moment because it says it all.
I have a book that I keep going back to that instead of having fertlitity as the elvan problem we have the elves as a human problem. In that universe the elves of a northern conclave went to war with a southern group and in doing so rode back and forth over mortal human society and civilization until they destroyed it – and then the elves went home.
A century later the last mortal who knew how to read goes to demand justice – and a book on healing – from the northern elves who had not, until that moment, realized the consequences of their war.
That book is also in re-write hell but I periodically post exerpts on my blogspot. funwithghoulsandgoblins.blogspot.
I also post work in progress updates on website dlcarterauthor.com
Note: featured photo downloaded from alphacoders.com. Some really cool images here.
