Good day, readers and writers; it’s Friday once again. Today I wanted to present you with an opportunity unlike the writing contests and publishing opportunities I’ve brought you in the past. Namely, I’m going to talk about a website called the Online Book Club.
If you follow me on social media, you’ve already seen my plethora of posts related to the website’s Book of the Day and the (one) review I’ve published through them thus far. I signed up for the website when I received an invitation through a Twitter direct message, and I’m pretty glad that I grabbed that chance. Not only have I been exposed to a wider range of books but I’ve also learned of a couple opportunities which would help an avid reader/writer earn some extra bucks.
The Online Book Club offers two unique possibilities for its users: to review books and to have your book reviewed. Of course, you can join the website for the sole purpose of their free or discounted Books of the Day and to talk with other readers. However, you can also choose to earn some extra cash as a reviewer or gain some exposure as a writer. Note that it is an either/or situation; you cannot both be a reviewer for the website and ask your book be reviewed because it’s a potential conflict of interest.
The reviews, at first, only give you the books for free in return. You have to climb the ranks through posts on the Book of the Month forums, published reviews, and the number of viewers and replies to your reviews. Nevertheless, it doesn’t take long to reach a paying level if you put a little time into it. I recently reached the minimum-payment books and am currently working on a $5 review.
You can also earn money through the Twitter Retweet Rewards Board, which involves retweeting, liking, and replying to the pinned Tweet on their account every day. In addition, they run a daily giveaway based on the Book of the Day, with the base prize being a $10 Amazon gift card ($20 if you have at least 25 posts).
There are many more details to each of these categories and I don’t have any experience with getting a book reviewed on the site, so I’m going to leave a link here for you to check out yourself. While your there, check out my review of Mois Benarroch’s poetry collection The Immigrant’s Lament.
Know of any interesting exposure, publishing, or money-making opportunities for fellow writers? Drop a line in the comments or e-mail me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com.
Most artists don’t like negative feedback. Writers are no exception. We put our time, blood, sweat, and tears into our writing; it’s an extension of ourselves. This link intensifies when we conjure the courage to publish. Reading a “bad” review of our latest publication feels like a friend bashing us on Facebook. Maybe we’re overreacting to minor criticism or maybe the person who wrote it really is being a jerk. Some people have sticks up their butts and want to troll the world. That’s a sad fact of life. Still, not all “bad” reviews and negative feedback are meant to be mean. Despite what we might tell ourselves or vent to our loved ones, they may not be entirely baseless, either. Rather, these criticisms are just honest reviews.
As with negative feedback from alpha and beta readers, our knee-jerk reaction to honest reviews can be rash and disastrous. We may blame ourselves and our writing, start badmouthing our entire being, and threaten to give up. On the flip side, we may brush it off as people hating us, our writing style, the genre, whatever, and decide that the reviews aren’t worth our time or energy. While the second option protects our fragile egos and prevents an immediate shut-down of our careers, both could damage us as artists.
I’ve preached repeatedly that you shouldn’t give up when things seem bleak, and I’ll continue to do so in the future. What I want to discuss here is the value of pursuing honest reviews, rather than ignoring them.
All writers know that, in the workshop/editing phase, we must evaluate negative feedback rationally and decide which remarks are helpful. But what about after publication? What should we do about negative reviews? If they damage our marketability, how could they possibly help us?
Despite the potential hit to sales, receiving negative reviews are a blessing in disguise, so long as they are honest.
First of all, honest reviews may not impact book sales the way you would think, even if they are negative. Yes, a review which critiques the work may deter people from reading it. However, The Ramblings of a Madwoman pointed out that readers are also more likely to choose a book if the accompanying reviews are genuine. One- or two-line positive reviews seem suspicious. Did someone drop fluff in the feedback without reading the book? Did the writer’s family or friends post these reviews to boost the writer’s confidence? If readers doubt the authenticity of the review, they’ll question the quality of the book itself.
Beyond the sales perspective, honest reviews can show you where your writing can improve. If multiple reviewers point out spelling or grammar errors, you should consider more thorough proofreading. If people appear to be harping on one aspect of the book–character development, plot, setting–you can focus on developing your skills in that area.
In some cases, you can act on honest reviews by adjusting the piece they critique. The increasing presence of e-books, small publishing companies, and self-publishing allows for more frequent re-printings. Did the review mention spelling and grammar errors? You, your editor, and/or your publisher can make note of these errors and fix them in the e-book and other re-releases of the work. Are you receiving a lot of negative critiques of your self-published book? Perhaps it’s time for you to re-read it with a fresh eye and work on re-writes. That’s the miracle of self-publishing; if you prematurely put the book on sale, honest reviews can help you see the mistake and go back to the drawing board.
Most importantly, though, you can carry these lessons into your future endeavors. You don’t have to entirely change your writing style or topics to please critics. In fact, I strongly discourage such alterations. Instead, you can keep the honest reviews at the back of your mind as you edit and rewrite your next piece. So and so said the main character for your last book was flat, does your current protagonist have depth? Most reviews complained that your transitions were clunky, should you read the new scenes aloud to see how the transitions feel? Many readers found typos in your last self-published novel, have you truly fixed all the errors this time? Should you hire an outside editor? Multiple? Can you trust the editor you used last time, or do all these complaints suggest they dropped the ball?
“Bad” reviews are hard to receive, even when they are honest (or perhaps especially). As with negative critiques from workshops, we must take them with a grain of salt. We cannot let them ruin our self-confidence and deter us, but we can’t ignore them, either. They may contain a kernel of wisdom which would take our writing to the next level, if only we listen.
What are your thoughts on honest reviews? Would you prefer an honest “bad” review or a review that blows sunshine your way? Some “bad” reviews really are left by trolls and haters. How do you ween them out?
Leave your thoughts and stories in the comments below. You can also e-mail me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com, connect with the blog on Facebook, or follow me at @dragonet07 or @writersscrapbin on Twitter.
If you would like me to read and review your published work, look me up on Fiverr and we can arrange an order.
I’m starting the week with an exciting new feature: writer interviews. In this series I will conduct interviews with writers across the spectrum, from poets to fiction authors, self-published writers to the traditionally-published. I will ask them about their writing and publishing experiences, their advice to fellow writers, and their opinions on hot-button issues. For the first interview, author Rich Marcello has graciously taken time from his busy schedule to answer some questions via e-mail.
You may remember Marcello from my review of his novel The Beauty of the Fall. In addition to The Beauty of the Fall, Marcello has penned two other novels (The Big Wide Calm and The Color of Home), writes poetry, teaches creative writing at Seven Bridges’ Writer Collaborative, and is an accomplished songwriter and musician. With a history in the technology industry, Rich Marcello is the perfect example of how you don’t need a literary or humanities background to write and tackle today’s biggest issues.
Let’s start with a question about your career background. The biography on your website says that you’re a poet, songwriter/musician, author, and creative writing teacher. However, you were also previously a technology executive who managed several businesses for Fortune 500 companies. Why and how did you make the leap from technology and management to writing and teaching?
When I was in college, my humanities professor told me I wrote well and offered to teach me how to write novels. I was broke at the time, and though I loved writing, I decided to make money instead. That’s why I went into hi-tech. It turned out that I loved technology as well, and I thrived in that environment for a time. During my technology career, I wrote songs and poems and dabbled every now and again with writing stories, but there wasn’t enough time to do a full novel. Finally, I reached a point where I had to make a choice: either finish out my career in technology or return to my first love ––writing. I chose writing, and it was the best decision I’ve ever made.
Many aspiring writers come from a variety of educational and career backgrounds, from journalism and a Bachelor’s in English to marketing and a Bachelor’s in Economics. What advice do you have for writers coming from non-literary backgrounds?
Probably to accept the 10,000-hour rule. When you are accomplished in one field and, as part of that field or because of some innate ability, you write well, you believe the transition to writing fiction will be easy. But it’s actually like any profession ( well, okay, maybe harder). You need to learn your craft and it takes a good ten thousand hours to get to a place where you can write a competent novel. Along the way, be kind to yourself. Writing a novel is the most difficult thing you will ever do and it will change you for the better if you are patience and stick with it.
What advice do you have for writers overall?
Write the first draft of any scene quickly so you get all of the core emotion in it. Then edit the scene at least five times to flesh it out. I even use this Five Time Rule with my students and all agree it works well.
Which writers have influenced you the most? Which books/poems?
I love Milan Kundera, Walker Percy, Thomas Pynchon, Mary Oliver, Audre Lorde, Kay Ryan, and Alice Walker. I’ve read all of their books and would say they’ve influenced me the most. I particularly like The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
Your prose strikes me as very poetic. Would you say that writing as a poet has affected your novel writing? How?
Poetry has had a huge impact on my novels mostly at the sentence level. There are times when I will spend hours on a sentence (really) just to make sure that it is poetic enough. I don’t do that all of the time, but there are places in novels where poetic language feels right, and when it does, I use it either as part of the prose or by adding an explicit piece of poetry or a song lyric.
Dan in The Beauty of the Fall seems to be partially based on your past as a technology executive, at least in regards to his career. You also reference many real Fortune 500 companies and several are clearly influenced by real companies (Peach and PhotoPhotobook come to mind). How did you handle the delicate balance between the “reality” in your novel and the fiction?
I rarely use real life incidents in my books, but I do draw on my expertise or the expertise of my friends or colleagues. I find that my best writing comes when I develop characters who in one way of another cross boundaries that I haven’t crossed in my own life. In The Beauty of the Fall, it was important for Dan to have a lot of technology and management expertise, so I did draw on my time in tech to shape that aspect of his character. Also, with Willow, I spent a year on the Board of Directors of a Domestic Violence non-profit so I could accurately develop her character.
Conversationworks involves many technological and societal leaps in order to thrive. Do you think that such feats are achievable in today’s world?
Well, the technology isn’t available today to build Conversationworks, but it will be in say twenty or thirty years. With that said, the world we live in is so polarized that we certainly could use Conversationworks today. One of the reasons I chose to end the book on a hopeful note is because I’m firmly convinced we need something like Conversationworks to help move the human race forward.
The Beauty of the Fall deals with many controversial issues, including violence against women, self-harm, and ethics in business and technology. Was it difficult to write about these subjects? How did you navigate the tricky obstacle of depicting the heavy truth of these issues while still making the novel palatable for readers?
I’ve always been drawn to the big questions in life, so no, writing about these things was not difficult. In many ways, I feel one of my roles as a writer is to shed light on difficult topics and to do it in a way that resonates with readers. With that said, it is tricky to get the balance right. Because Conversationworks was designed to facilitate difficult conversations, I was able to use it as the primary vehicle for some of the more difficult conversations in the book. In that sense, The Beauty of the Fall provided me with a unique opportunity to go a little more into heavy truth.
Finally, what do you think is the biggest issue facing the writing/publishing industry today? Should we be more concerned about the business issues, such as profitability of books and the e-book versus paper book debate, or social worries, such as representation in the writers and topics we print?
Well, the short answer is both. In general, it’s harder and harder for a writer to make a living as a writer. Most of the writers I know have other jobs because they don’t make enough to support themselves or their families. So what happens is they look for ways to get their book sales up and that often means compromising their art. In general, much like Conversationworks revolutionized technology, there’s a need for a revolution in the publishing business, one that helps empower writers to create more art during a difficult time in the history of the human race and compensates them appropriately for doing so.
I want to thank Marcello once again for taking time for this interview. You can learn more about Rich Marcello on his website and buy his novels through Amazon.
Also remember that the first $25,000 in profits from The Beauty of the Fall will be donated to the domestic violence organization Bridges. For more information and to donate, please visit the donation page.
What are your thoughts on Marcello’s advice? Do you know of any writers I should interview or books I should review? Drop a line in the comments or e-mail me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com.
TGIF, readers and writers! Today I’m going to borrow a writing exercise from the virtual summer school I attended for my Master’s program last year. In this exercise, you will be writing a short prose piece or poem about an object that you “have to hand” (the tutors’ words, not mine). Think pencil, ladle, orange, etc.
Spend ten minutes meditating on the object and jot down notes regarding your observations. Don’t just look at the object; engage all of your senses with it. This exercise is meant to help you learn description and imagery beyond what you see. What does the object feel like? Sound like? Smell like? Of course you should observe what it looks like as well but don’t limit yourself to that. What sort of feelings do you associate with the object, both through your senses and through your emotions?
After those initial ten minutes, set everything aside and walk away for a while. Do anything you like so long as you get your mind off the exercise for a short time.
When you come back, read over your notes. Choose whichever images and phrases from your notes you think are the strongest–the most vivid, the least cliché, and so on–and string those images and phrases together to create a short piece of prose or a poem about that object.
Here’s the piece I came up with when we did this exercise for the virtual summer school:
“Pen”
Look at this highly-decorated usurper. See how it boasts its silver engravings—tributes to its maker—like a Squid boasts his tats after a drawn-out deployment. And French—a tramp stamp to boot! That peacock! Pimped out in blue from splashes of orphan to slit-views of the Mariana Trench. Who is this kid to take the place of such worthy predecessors: the thespian quill, the proletarian pencil?
Beware the silver finger trap, more apt for clipping to your skin than your pocket. Resist, if you can, the temptation to fidget with the top (an addiction I fight quite hard). Feel the power of the button shove the needle out from this imposter, an I.V. that drips its blue blood at your command: c-click c-click, l-life d-death. But not too often. One click too many, you’re stuck for life.
Look! What’s this? The finger trap is loose! The needle refuses your command to retreat; the button won’t budge to your fidget. The dandy’s collapse has begun with the multi-gig generation looming. Yet like a car limping through its last few miles, jerry-rigged repairs will pull the blue soldier through for another day.
The pen from the above piece
More than anything, remember to have fun with this. This exercise is only to loosen you up and strengthen your observation skills; it’s not like you’re looking to win the Nobel Prize in Literature over a poem about a pen.
What was your experience with this exercise? Have any thoughts? Did you write anything you’d like to share? Drop a line in the comments, on our Facebook page, or join our Facebook group to talk with other writers.
Let’s face it, writers tend to have obsessive personalities. I know I do. Harry Potter, Disney, Dragonriders of Pern role play, I can even become obsessed with school and freelance work. Perhaps that’s why writers are able to write; our brains simply won’t let the material go until we have completed the project to our satisfaction. Sometimes that means that we never let a project go, instead turning it into an entire series of books, stories, poems, or essays. That’s great. After all, that means we will never be wanting for material. But what about when we become obsessed with our work, to the point that we snap if we get interrupted? It makes me wonder: are writers workaholics?
Writers are rather contradictory by nature. We dread writing and yet we dread not writing even more. I’ve been busy with various freelance jobs recently and, as a result, I haven’t been able to focus my imaginative power enough to work on my own writing. It’s killing me. I’m riding a high from working on other projects but a part of me dies when I don’t write. I know that other writers feel the same way.
I suppose that people can easily become workaholics when they love what they do. As they say, those who do what they love will never work a day in their lives. Since writers simultaneously love and dread what they do, it’s no wonder they pick up workaholic traits. Add to that the obsessive behavior and you will no longer be mystified by writers who lock themselves away for days on end working on their latest novel or poetry collection.
So, we’re workaholics. All artists are. Is that a bad thing? Not always.
On the one hand, workaholic behavior can increase productivity. That’s a given. You work more and more work gets done. As long as we have something to focus on, we’re also happy. Frustrated, perhaps, especially when we have writer’s block or get interrupted, but happy nonetheless. Eventually, that increased productivity may also lead to more money if our work sells.
Increased productivity, happiness, and money, what could possibly go wrong?
Unfortunately, as with most workaholics, writers burn the candle at both ends. We push ourselves to our absolute limits, ignoring our other needs and the needs of those who rely on us. We may feel happy while we’re working but, in the long run, we risk destroying other aspects of our lives.
In life and in writing, we have to balance work and other needs/desires very carefully. If we don’t write at all, we die inside. If we let writing take over our lives entirely, we lose those relationships and experiences that enrich our art. When we finally achieve that balance, that is when we are truly happy and successful. More importantly, that is when our work becomes its best, infused with the passion of our minds and the richness of real life experiences.
Do you think writers are workaholics? Obsessive? How do you handle the work/life balance? Leave your thoughts in the comments or join the conversation on our Facebook page.
Well readers, it’s almost Thursday. Two days stand between us and the weekend. To help you pull through it, I’ve decided to discuss a rather encouraging quote on writing by beloved Gothic and supernatural.paranormal writer Anne Rice.
For those who don’t know, Anne Rice is a popular author best known for The Vampire Chronicles and the iconic Lestat, known lovingly by fans as the “Brat Prince.” She also wrote The Witching Hour and other books about the Mayfair Witches, The Wolf Gift Chronicles, the Sleeping Beauty erotica series, and Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, on which the 2016 film The Young Messiah is based.
I hate to admit this but I have yet to read any of Rice’s books. I know, I know, how can I be a fan of the supernatural/paranormal and Gothic genres in this day and age if I haven’t read The Vampire Chronicles? I could defend myself by saying that I’ve seen both Interview with a Vampire and The Queen of the Damned but I know as well as every other reader or writer that the movies can never hold a candle to the books. I plan to read and review Memnoch the Devil before the summer is over, and my mother is a huge Anne Rice fan.
I do, however, follow Rice on social media for the interesting news articles she posts and her invaluable advice on writing and succeeding in the publishing industry.
I decided to focus on the following quote, advice which she has posted many times and re-posted on her Facebook page the other day:
In your writing, go where the pain is; go where the excitement is. Believe in your own original approach, voice, characters, story. Ignore the critics. Have nerve. Be stubborn.
–Anne Rice
We all know that, at its core, writing is an act of courage. Writers dig deep into their psyche, their emotions, and harness that raw power to create something that, hopefully, someone will want to read. All writers put a chunk of their souls into their work, no matter the subject matter or genre. That’s how all creative types do, whether they’re writers, painters, architects, or even scientists. That’s why we take negative feedback so personally.
It takes courage to experiment in writing and to continue writing what you love. Step too far outside the box and the work will be pushed aside, sometimes ridiculed. Stay too far inside the box and the work will be ignored and labelled “cliché.” If readers have become accustomed to you writing in one genre, stepping outside of it may alienate them (which is why some writers opt to use pen names). If you stick with your preferred genre too long, you’ll be called a one-trick pony and forever associated with that genre, for better or for worse.
People will judge you so long as you’re brave enough to put your work out there.
That’s why Rice’s words are so potent. Writers must dig deep and go where they have the most passion, whether that passion be pain or pleasure. I know from personal experience that it’s hard–I often freeze up at the thought of going into the more…passionate areas of my psyche–but the effort pays off.
This Vampire Queen knows very well how to go where the pain is and come back out alive and healing. Image retrieved from Anne Rice’s Wikipedia entry
More importantly, writers have to let themselves use that passion without worrying what others will think. That first draft is for you alone. Tap into the pain, pleasure, depression, anger, and excitement and let it lead you where it may. After that, rewrite it into something you would want to read. You will want to keep an audience in mind but don’t censor yourself because you’re worried that some critics will throw their two cents in. Remember, some of the biggest literary classics started as failures during their first run.
With that thought in mind, I release you to your writing endeavors. Just remember the key theme of this blog as you move forward: write for yourself first.
Thoughts? Questions? Suggestions for future “Writers on Writing”? Drop a line in the comments, and don’t forget to follow our new Facebook page.
Update 11/25/2022: This article and other pieces of my writing, from The Writer’s Scrap Bin articles to original stories and poetry, can be found on Vocal.
I am happy to announce that I have created an official Facebook page for The Writer’s Scrap Bin. It’s pretty sparse right now but I’ll be using the page to connect with readers, make announcements, and, of course, provide links to new blog posts.
Readers can use the Facebook page to message The Writer’s Scrap Bin directly if they do not wish to e-mail or leave a comment on individual blog posts. Have any suggestions for future blog posts or have a cool story you’d like to share with other writers? You can do that, too. More than anything else, I want the Facebook page to encourage a stronger community and more connection among my readers. After all, I started this blog to help and connect with other writers.
I hope to see many faces, both new and old, on the page.
Have any suggestions for what I should add to the Facebook page? Other social media outlets on which you think I should create an account for this site? Feel free to contact me through the comments section, an e-mail to thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com, and now Facebook.
Today I’m going on a tangent. I’ve been dancing around this subject for a few days now, perhaps since the beginning of this blog. Because I recently read The Beauty of the Fall and Sherman Alexie announced that he would be cancelling his book tour due to depression, I figured that now is the time to discuss a very fragile but very important issue: mental illness.
A supposed link between artists and mental illness has been a source of laughter, fear, and debate in the creative community, from writers to painters to engineers. I recently read an interesting blog post on the website for Scientific American in which the author discusses a link between creative people and mental illness which most people may not consider.
I’m not going to arguing for or against the link. As the above article mentions, most researchers agree that “mental illness is neither necessary nor sufficient for creativity.” I trust the science behind this conclusion but you cannot deny that many well-known creative people have suffered, or at least seem to have suffered, from some form of mental illness. Van Gogh. Hemingway. Woolf. Plath. Rowling. Many, if not all, of my creative friends have some form of mental illness. I suffer from crippling anxiety and depression.
Does that mean mental illness aids creativity? While it can serve as experience-gathering and inspiration after one has overcome or gained control of it, I would generally say no, mental illness does not help creativity. In fact, as the Scientific American blog post suggests, the opposite is true.
Remember, mental illness can take over your mind and push out everything else, including creativity.
I can only speak from personal experience. The days when my anxiety overwhelms me or I can’t see any light at the end of the tunnel due to depression, I can’t write a thing. I doubt that anything I could possibly write would be worth reading and I feel like some invisible force keeps shoving me away from the creative and cognitive functions of my brain.
Perhaps that’s why so many creative types who suffer from mental illness self-destruct. Like anyone else, we’re afraid of the stigma surrounding depression, anxiety, and similar illnesses and want everyone to think that we’re doing fine. We trick ourselves into thinking that so long as we stay busy, so long as we keep writing or engage in whichever creative outlet we prefer, that we will be fine. It’s just another source of inspiration.
We’re wrong.
Eventually, mental illness wins out over creative action if we don’t get help. I know this view is rather pessimistic but it’s the truth. We try and push through our inhibitions but we wear down.
Art therapy can help with mental illness, but what happens when the artist doesn’t address his/her struggles?
Daily creative acts can ease mental illness. Still, that doesn’t mean that they will make the problem go away entirely. We can’t ignore the issue and hope it’ll get better.
We have to let people we trust know about our experiences. The stigma is strong but we have to break it. Support from loved ones, therapy, daily life changes, medication, many options to improve our mental conditions exist if only we choose to pursue them. I know that, in the United States, it can be hard enough to get the medical support due to health cost restrictions. Why deprive ourselves from the other options, too, because we’re scared of what other people will think?
Remember, you can’t write if you’re too overwhelmed and not taking care of yourself.
Do you have any experiences with mental illness you wish to share? Words of advice, encouragement, or additional resources? Feel free to drop a line in the comments. Remember, this is a safe place. No one will judge you and, if anyone starts to troll you on here, please contact me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com.
Good day, readers and writers. I want to start off this week with a note of encouragement to everyone who feels down on their luck. Namely, I want to discuss using rock bottom as a foundation for future success.
Now, you may be down on your luck without exactly hitting “rock bottom.” I know I have felt that way many times. You may also feel as though you’ve stooped that low only to realize later that you had farther to fall. After all, the definition and experience of rock bottom differs from person to person. I, fortunately, have yet to hit rock bottom myself.
Nevertheless, what I’m talking about today will be useful to anyone feeling down on their luck, whether it’s a feeling of hitting rock bottom or just wanting to give up the current path because it seems to be leading nowhere.
Within the last month I have reviewed J.K. Rowling’s Very Good Lives and Rich Marcello’s The Beauty of the Fall. While they belong to two distinctly different genres, they share an important lesson: don’t give up when things look bad.
Dan in The Beauty of the Fall loses everything that matters to him. When things start to look up, he either self-destructs or has the rug pulled out from under him again. Regardless, he doesn’t give up. With the help of loved ones, Dan forces himself to soldier on even when things appear their most bleak.
Similarly, Rowling explains how she did not give into the desire to end the struggle when she hit her all-time low. She had contemplated the worst but, due to the love she had for her daughter, she pulled through. More than that, she created one of the most well-known characters in literary history and now lives as a multi-millionaire author and a household name. As Rowling claims, she used rock bottom as the foundation on which she built her success.
That’s what everyone must do. When life seems to be throwing you its worst, you have to hit back with your best. Only then will you thrive.
I’m not saying that it’s easy. Far from it, actually. You most certainly can’t do it alone. Dan relies on his friends, colleagues, and therapists to make it through his darkest times. Rowling needed her daughter. Laying a foundation and constructing a building is rarely–probably never–a one-person job. Why should we expect to build a strong future from a rock bottom foundation without some help?
Many issues complicate this matter. Motivation, for one. Mental illness is another. (Although that subject is best reserved for another post.) Time, energy, obstacles thrown at us by outside forces, even our own stupid mistakes and self-sabotaging behavior. Regardless, with the help of loved ones and colleagues you can make a solid foundation out of your hard times.
Have any experience pulling out of rock bottom? Wish to share advice or stories with other readers? Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments.
Trigger Warning: The book reviewed contains scenes of violence and gore as extreme as dismemberment. Sex scenes are also depicted, though not in great detail. Brief discussions of sex-related human trafficking occur and slavery serves a pivotal role in the plot. If you’ve had bad experiences with any of the above or otherwise take offense to these topics, proceed with caution.
Epic fantasy fans may want to check this one out, especially if you like your fantasy with a side of romance, mystery, and a touch of gore. Today I’m going to review Sister of Echo: The Making of a Villain (Part One) by Ameel Koro.
Set in Dacia during the time of the Roman Empire, The Making of a Villain (Part One) follows a convoy of merchants, their slaves, and the guards guiding them to Panonni. One night the convoy runs into a problem: a young woman, muddy and naked save for her horrific-smelling cloak, has been found sleeping on the side of the road. Dardanos, the leader of the guards, has a bad feeling about her and wants to leave her. Cotiso, a kind-hearted merchant, refuses to abandon her in the woods on a cold winter’s night, and so offers to buy her as a slave. Dardanos agrees but on the condition that she remain locked in the wagon in which she will travel.
As their travels continue, people warm up to the girl, Alina, with the exception of Dardanos. Unfortunately for the soldier-turned-guard, the one whom warms up most to her is one of his own men, nineteen-year-old Sinna. The young man can’t keep his eyes off of this beautiful woman, and the feeling is mutual.
What unfolds over the entire 237 pages is a whirlwind of romance, mystery, gore, and a splash of revenge. The biggest question on everyone’s mind (including the reader’s): who—or what—is Alina?
Image retrieved from Amazon (ad included below)The plot interested me and the setting grabbed my attention immediately. I typically enjoy books which take place around the time of the Roman Empire (Black Horses for the King is one of my favorite books) and the mystery of Alina’s identity kept me on my toes. Even when it seemed that part of her secret had been exposed, Koro approached it in such a manner that I questioned if it was the truth—at the least I knew it could not be the whole truth.
However, the use of setting disappointed me. I did not feel truly immersed in the time or place until they arrive at Artucia. Names of places, gods, and cultural groups are used but I never got a real feel for the location or the time. The forest, the village, and the first mansio feel as though they could have been anywhere; only the weather gives the reader a real idea of geographical setting beyond the names used. More should have been pursued in the cultural and religious aspects of the setting. Koro explores some of the cultural views of slavery and the characters repeatedly refer to a god named Zalmoxis but beyond that the story very well could have taken place in a parallel world or the modern day (if technology were added).
In fact, the dialogue and the terminology throughout the narrative seems far too modern for a book set in Roman times. The characters frequently use the word “yeah” and the narration includes words such as “boyfriend” and “pimp,” neither of which would’ve been in use back then. (“Pimp” did not enter colloquial English until at least 1607.) I can usually suspend disbelief in this regard because it would be impossible to account for all of the differences caused by time. In this case, however, it really bothered me that the writing had such a modern feel to it. I expect a far different kind of writing with historic fiction, even historic fantasy, and I felt as though I could have found this sort of writing in something like Harry Potter.
The behavior of the characters strained my ability to suspend disbelief as well. I appreciate the strong women in this narrative; in fact, I love them. Still, the dynamic among the slaves and the freed men did not match the social hierarchy and accompanying mannerisms of that time. Slavery in Roman times did follow different rules than Europe’s African slave trade we learn about in the Western World, but I doubt that the slaves would have been allowed to speak quite as informally with freed men as these characters do. I understand why Corina and Tati act the way they do and I would not expect any different from fatherly Cotiso. I also think that Sinna and Alina’s interactions could have carried on the way they do as well. The other interactions, such as Maria shouting at a guard like Sinna, seem unrealistic.
A diverse cast of characters populate this historic—yet fantastical—world: Cotiso, a kind-hearted, fatherly merchant; Tati, a skirt-chasing merchant in Cotiso’s convoy; Corina, Tati’s sassy, sexual, and jealous (perhaps even insecure) female slave; Maria, Cotiso’s tough and practical but mischievous and dirty-minded slave and Alina’s mentor; and Dardanos, the military-roughened guard with nothing but suspicions, orders, and a temper. Of course, we also have Sinna, the sweet but rather naïve and romantic (yet also, clearly, hormone-driven) guard, and Alina, the quiet and obedient mystery woman whom no one can figure out.
Even with such a wide range of personalities, I felt that the characters left something to be desired and that many do not reach their full potential. Several are stereotypes, such as Corina and Tati, and others do not really develop into realistic people at all, like Tsiru. Besides following Tati around because he himself is bad at business, Tsiru is a blank slate which Koro could use to his advantage in future installments. Tati and Corina, while a fun dynamic to watch and certainly revolutionary given the setting, fall under stereotypes that I have seen many times before: the man who should be in charge and his woman who is actually in charge.
Despite Alina and Sinna being the center of the plot, I am more interested in Cotiso. He is a very kind man, even to his slaves, and refuses to become a slave merchant. However, he also has no qualms with entering Maria and Alina into a slave contest in Artucia. If he’s fine with the idea of them being degraded in a slave contest, is Cotiso truly driven by kindness? Or by greed? He proves not be entirely pure-hearted by the end of the novel, which I think Koro pulled off well. After all, every human has the ability to commit some mean act against another human, no matter how good they seem, especially to get information that they want.
Speaking of the slave contest, the twist involved in that event—which I will not discuss in detail to avoid spoilers—humored me initially. It was too much like a plot twist in a sitcom to fully fit my tastes. As it continued, however, my blood pounded and then my heart broke. I loved seeing more of Alina’s abilities revealed—and, thus, more of her identity exposed—but the sacrifice behind it saddened me, which is the mark of a good scene. I think the slave contest revealed more about the main characters and more masterfully handled the action and Alina’s secret than any other part of the novel.
Sinna and Alina’s relationship, while sweet and playful, had me thinking much like Cotiso. Sinna is so young, how could he take of her? He thinks he loves her now because she is so beautiful, but does he truly love her beyond her beauty? This doubt caused me to not root for the relationship very strongly. At the same time, I liked Alina and felt that she had been through too much already, so I found myself hoping the relationship would last so that she would not have to experience more heartache.
On a more technical side, there are several proofreading errors, but not so often as to be too distracting. The overuse of exclamation marks, the word “intoned,” the word “nagged,” and comparisons to children, on the other hand, annoyed me. These issues can easily be fixed with more editing and feedback.
Overall, The Making of a Villain (Part One) has a lot of potential: the plot is engaging, the setting piqued my interest, the character interactions are fun to observe, and the mystery and magic behind it all compelled me to read to the very end. I want to see where the next book takes the series but I am hesitant because of the pitfalls in the writing. I just don’t think that the writing matches the setting and should have been workshopped and refined more before publication.
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