InsaneJournal

Guess What I Noticed?

I loved Chainbreaker, and I think you’re both brilliant writers for your own individual writing styles.

Quoted From: ‘Chainbreaker’ review #1

I think that this was a great book, I truly enjoyed the trip.

Quoted From: ‘Chainbreaker’ review #2

Ooh yeah, Chainbreaker rocks dA! Yes yes, I’m excited over our news post placement. So shoot me.

I think the suspense on this damn book thing is truly gonna kill me. We’ve had our first two private crits come in, of which I have shamelessly appropriated some key marketing phrases from and posted above. You’ll have to forgive me for the pimping, but right now I am my marketing department.

Plus I’m, yanno, excited.

And even though it’s only been two people so far, we’ve had some really invaluable feedback. Places where the story seemed slow, plot twists that maybe needed some more foreshadowing… interest in a sequel.

Oh yes, there is a sequel! It’s called Dead on Arrival and is about two thirds written. I need to get off my butt and get back to work on it, but first I’ve gotta get my brain in the right gear; it’s still stuck in Smallville at the moment, but my usual Obsession Interest Cycle is about due to kick over and when it does it’ll hit the ground in Pandemonium City running.¹ The page at the site is a placeholder for now, but DoA kicks off exactly where Chainbreaker leaves us, so for those of you who’re wondering what happened to Loki and Sigmund, what’s wrong with Miriah and what the deal is with Tara… don’t worry, we’ve got it covered.

One of the things that gets mentioned a bit is the way the book switches between first and third person POV. I guess the style is a bit jarring if you haven’t encountered it before. I picked it up when I was in high school after reading Waking the Moon, and it’s also the style favoured by my super-favouritist author of all time, Michael Marshall Smith. The reason I chose it for Corner — and therefore carried it over to Urban Nordica — is flat-out a cheap trick to get Loki to be more sympathetic to the reader. Because from an outside POV he’s not sympathetic at all which is kinda rough for a hero protagonist. Luckily for me, he’s also an extremely flawed narrator and the first-person also kicks down his alienness factor a lot because his in-head narration is pretty human, even if his outside actions aren’t. When I deliberately want to play up Loki’s otherness, I write him third person; and he can get hella Other. Stuff that Loki takes for granted in his head — everything from the way his appearance changes to how certain things just ‘work’ for him to his actual Godly Godness — is all a goldmine of WTFness from the point of view of a third person observer, and this is where the series slips into horror territory as opposed to the modern dark fantasy action romp default state.

So the POV-switching is a risk, and I’m still trying to decide in my head whether it’s a justified risk or I’m making up excuses for something that really doesn’t work. Heh.

1. With profuse apologies to everyone waiting on UIP. I haven’t forgotten it, I swear! ^

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