You Gotta Spend Money to Make Money... Right?

Oh boy. In what might be a huge mistake, I have... (drum roll, please)... paid for advertising.

Nah, not on Facebook, although I'm investigating that as well. Since my books are almost exclusively offered on Amazon, I went with them first. The first unhappy surprise: minimum hundred dollars expenditure. Second unhappy surprise: I have to wait, potentially up to 72 hours, for them to review it.

The book I chose to advertise is The Queen of Swords... of course. If I have some success here, I may branch out and do a similar campaign for Delilah. Those are the two I consider my most popular (even though 1001 Erotic Nights is my best seller, by far). The first reason is... well, it's easy to pin down the interests. It's all based on comics and thus, I targeted people who would buy comics or super hero novels. The second reason is that there are three books out in the series. If people like Queen enough, they may check out Prince, and then Princess.

It was pretty easy to set up. My nerves will be wracked until it's actually a live campaign. I'll keep thinking, "OMG WHAT IF THEY DON'T LIKE IT?! WHAT IF I DID SOMETHING WRONG?!" which is silly, of course. The next thought is, "What if I don't sell a damn thing and I just threw a hundred bucks away?" That would be a lot more shaming. However, Queen has some of my best reviews, Rebecca Wolfe's audio is wonderful to listen to, and I think it's fun and dark and sexy to read. You ONLY get 150 characters to sum up the book, though! This is what I ended up with:

In Imperial City, villain-for-hire Caprice works hard... and she plays harder. This novella contains dark, sometimes brutal, sexy, mature content.

It hits all the main components. She's a villain (check) who is hired (check). She works hard (check... sort of a nod to her being a bad ass) and plays hard (check). It's dark (check), bloody (check in the 'brutal' comment), sexy (check) and for a mature audience (check). There's no main element of the book which I left out, I think. Oh, and it's a novella, NOT a novel (check). I do NOT want people to be surprised by the length. The next books are novels, yes, but this one isn't. I think Prince has more sex in it by virtue of its length, but per capita... Queen is packed with sex. I wasn't sure HOW much I wanted plot and how much I wanted sexy times yet, so I erred on the side of sexy times. IIRC, Princess has three and a half sex scenes in comparison... basically the same amount as Queen. But it's three times as long. Longer than that!

This is a new, nervous step for me. I am reluctant to bug bloggers and say "Hey, review my booooook!" but that'll be the next terrifying step. People have often told me that you have to spend money to make money, and I hope this pans out. If I get a lot of click throughs, that'll be good. If I get a lot of sales, that will be better. If I want to be taken seriously...I need to advertise. Which that's a whole other post--people not taking erotica writers seriously. I seriously challenge anyone on the street to write a hot sexy scene and get people to fap to it.

Opinions Are Like....

Hidey ho, neighborinos! I know it's been a little while since I blogged, but here's an update. :D

I actually got my first 1 star reviews the other day. I was a little stunned by it, because it was on the audio book versions of The Queen of Swords and The Prince of Cups on audible.com. I won't say they are high literature, but whomever did it drove by and left one star on "Overall" and "Story" (but I am happy to say they gave the "Performance" part 4 stars which was good! Rebecca Wolfe did a fantastic job on them, and I think I would have been waaaaay more upset if they had voted down her performance!) without leaving an actual review. On Audible, you can do that, which is fine. I get some people may not want to leave reviews with their names attached.

However, it does mystify me as to why the one star reviews. Again, I won't say they are high literature, but they aren't just a three thousand stroke pamphlet (or 20 minute stroke audio track) either! They are free from spelling errors and most grammatical errors. The story isn't just 'And they fucked'. The only thing I can think of is the EPIC miscategorization Audible put The Queen of Swords in... they put it in Romance. It is NOT romance. Not one bit. Not even a little teensy tiny bit. I categorized it on Amazon as sci-fi, dark fantasy, and action. There are sexy parts in it, yes, but it says on the COVER that it is super-powered erotica.

However, that is on the cover, and not in the blurb. I DO mark it as having strong sexual content and violent content as well, so there's fair warning. I can see how someone looking for a romance would be disappointed. Hell, there's a review on the UK Audible site which says that! They still thought it was interesting, and marked it as three stars. That's fair.

The miscategorization? Not my fault. When Audible makes the blurb and categorizes it, they pull the information directly from Amazon. I have nothing to do with the input. All I do is look for producers, approve the audio, upload the cover... that's it. Everything else is automated, which may not be the best system, for examples such as these. I got a little paranoid about it, trying to suss out the reasons.

Then... I figured it out.

It doesn't matter.

Everyone has an opinion and you know what? Everyone's entitled to that opinion. No matter the cause of the one stars, that person did not like them, and that's ok. People who rave about my stuff and rate them four or five? They are also entitled to their opinion. Even middle ground Max in the middle with rankings... yup, they are entitled as well. Everyone has a unique take on things, and it doesn't mean things are bad. It means that person did not like it. That's all.

And I'm cool with that. As the old saying goes, opinions are like assholes; everyone's got one. Instead of taking this as a negative experience and angsting about the why's, I'm choosing to take it as a positive thing. Someone found these audio books and took the time to rate it, so I got a reaction. Isn't that what all creative people want? To create a reaction in people? A feeling?

In other news, up to 66K in The Princess of Wands. I'm hoping to get a lot more written in the next few days. I sense the end coming up, and it's making me anxious!

Ramblings

I keep thinking "I should write something on the blog" but when I come up with a topic... I've already talked about it beforehand, and I don't really have anything new to add. I decided to just ramble a bit, so that y'all know I'm alive.

I'm currently working on The Princess of Wands, Villainess #3. I think it's going OK so far, but it won't be like the first two. Of course, neither are really like each other, other than they have the same protagonist. I also had a bolt of lightning hit me when it came to Villainess last night, and it's a good idea, but did I already write myself into a corner concerning that idea? In other words, have I written canon which counters it? Means I have to read my stuff here again and be sure about it. If I haven't though, it's a really good idea.

And it's one people won't see coming. That makes it the BEST idea ever. At least to me right now.

Have some thoughts on the next Rock Hardin too, and some thoughts on Reamin' Demons. Nothing major, but when I need to skip around I'm going to start on those.

What I need to do is lock down an idea for this short story I need to write. An independent publisher approached me to write some high fantasy erotica! The pay would be straight up front and I'm cool with that... I just have to have an idea. Audrey Lusk gave me a good one that I could use, and I'm working on another angle... but nothing has really grabbed me yet.

Smut for Your Ears

Villainess: The Queen of Swords AUDIObook went live today, which was amazing. It was a lot of fun working with the producer, who nailed Caprice's voice completely, I think. Jotham did up a audio book cover for it since the dimensions are different than an ebook. Now I REALLY need to investigate putting a sidebar up on here to show all the different buy links! Just really, really busy at work at my day job and in writing.

For those who don't know, I am writing a story set in the Villainess world except told from Nosferatu's POV. I'm tentatively calling it "The Razor's Edge" and it's being written for an erotica anthology. The central theme of the anthology is "erotic transformation", and I thought a guy who transforms into a vampire is a pretty good transformation, right? I have a deadline on that one, so I have to get that done first before publishing anything else on my own.

The next one I'm working on is about half done though, and the cover is 99% done, so it should be out fast! This would be the next Witches of Back End book, and after that the next Delilah Devilshot. Then, all of my series will have at least two books out thus indicating to the people who read them that yes, I am planning on continuing all of them... because I am.

I am going to probably put a hard limit on a couple of the series though.

• Villainess has 16 books. No more, no less. The reason for this is because I am writing the books based on the courts of the tarot. There are 16 court cards, thus, 16 books.
• Rock Hardin will probably have 9 or 10. It depends on how many covers Jotham has done. I am not one to waste his work, and while my illustrator dictates what it's about and the name of the book, I still write it. He just made all of these REALLY awesome covers, and I want to use them! So far he's only made 9 or 10, and I'm going to try to keep him to JUST 9 or 10!
• The Janus Key Chronicles will end on a zero: 20/30/40 etc. The reason for that is the bundling I have planned for them... it only works if it ends on a zero. If I run out of steam on it, then it'll be 20. I'm guessing it'll probably be around book 30 that I finally quit the JKC. It's fun to write, cute, and stress relieving for me. Plus I have a ton of titles for it planned. 
• The Delilah Devilshot series will go until there's no more story to tell. I have NO idea when that will be. However, since I know it'll be about six books until she gets the guns she'll be known for... and there's seven riders to track down who killed her family... plus stuff I have in my head and I can't spoil for you guys... it could be a long, long series. I'm going to aim for novellas for those, if not novels, but they'll be as long as they'll be.
• The Witches of Back End I'm not sure on. It would be symmetrical to have it be 9, but I just don't know. There's sort of a metaplot, but not really? It's a light write too, so it's not like heavy and plot intensive. I'm guessing 9 will likely be my cut off, right around there, but that one is really up in the air.

Now I do have other series, anthology series, which may get added to as time goes on. Dominating Her Man is done. That one is finito, end of story. I would be ok with leaving Wantonly Wicked where it is, but I have other ideas for erotic horror which may come up. I really want at LEAST one more Cosmic Erotic so I can make a bundle of the three. Mythic Erotica is slow writing, because they are all bunches of short stories put together. I have started the next one, but the starting is research. It'll be a while before I start writing that one. While it will continue, each of those could stand as stand alones simply because they are so different, exploring different cultures and legends.

Bryce and I have some ideas for a collaboration, but we're still both writing our own stuff, without much time to actually collaborate. Hopefully after things slow down here IRL I will be able to be more with it to knock ideas around again and get them down on paper.

That be it for now!

Finding Your Character's Voices

This is inspired by a fellow writer's words to me, upon reading the first edited draft of The Prince of Cups. I'm going to quote part of what he said here, so that we're all on the same page.

What I find fascinating is that your characters are so different from mine, yet they're very real. Just as you're a very different person from me even though we get along well.

It's not just because they are born from separate heads, though of course that's a lot of it, but because our character's voices are vastly different. When writing from the third person limited or first person point of view, it's vitally important to find the lead character's voice, make it consistent, and make it unique. How exactly do you do that, though?

The first step is to know your character. Since I've been in Caprice's head for a month, I'm going to use her for an example. The questions I ask myself when I'm making a character go from the pretty vague to the very specific. First, what are her major personality traits? Well, she's a sociopath, but what does that mean exactly? It means she doesn't have empathy for other people. That leads to a lot of coldness in her voice, saying, "Yeah, this person is going to die. Oh well." She doesn't care. They aren't important to her, unless she needs something.

What's another trait? Well, she's vain. She knows she's good looking, and she wants to stay that way. It's not because of power or to use people, though she does use her looks to get what she wants, it's because she wants to be the best. Being the best to her means being good looking as well as powerful and smart.

Though there's more to her, those are a couple of broad strokes I can build off of. I can remember that she would be upset when someone rebukes her advances because hey, she's hot. I can put down how little she cares about someone else's pain (except to get off on, but that's another personality trait), and so on. Once I have a good sense of who she is as a person, I focus on what she does for a living. Working is a major part of a person's life. In this case, she's a hired killer or thief. Really, a hired thug for whatever dirty job. Is she picky about it? Are there things she wouldn't do? What would be her line?

If someone were say, an office worker, reasonable questions to ask about them would be if they liked their job, and why? Do they have an office romance or rivalry? Is there a task they don't like doing, but are forced to do anyway? ("Gonna need those TPS reports...") Do they steal from work? So on and so forth. Another thing to ask the character about--and by this point in my head I'm asking the character, not just myself anymore--is their family. Do they get along? Have a big family? Maybe they were an orphan. What family controversies were there, if any? What traditions? Do they miss their family, or do they talk to them?

In Caprice's case, she would answer something like, "I don't talk to my family. They don't have anything to do with who I am. I'm my own person." And she wouldn't say much more until pressed, at which point I knew she was sore about her family, for whatever reason. "I don't like my mother. She pushes, too much, too hard. She doesn't let me do things on my own. But I like my dad. He was just always there, you know? He didn't take sides. He was always there for both of us."

Now is where it gets fun. You have an idea about their life, what they do, and who is around them. Ask yourself this... what do they order for pizza? What's their favorite television show and why? What do they do for fun? Ask them any other questions you might ask someone in getting to know them. Favorite hobbies, interests, how they like their food, anything at all! In Caprice's case, she orders a large everything. She doesn't watch television, because she finds it a waste of time. And her work is fun for her... but talking about something else other than work, she likes people watching.

Getting a handle on their personality is vital to 'hearing' them. So when you get into the nitty gritty of describing their voice, you can tell if it's going to be soft or hard, whispery or loud, and so on. Do they have an accent? Are they from a particular area of the world? How they express themselves to others in the book is how they are going to express themselves to your readers. Are they guarded? Secretive? Open? Trusting? The main character's voice is going to set the whole tone for the book, and although it's important to hear all of the character's voices, the narrator is the most important.

In this case, Caprice speaks with no discernible accent, but she's confident. She doesn't have to raise her voice to be heard, but she can when she wants to. She's not particularly secretive, nor open. She has secrets that she keeps, but everything is an open book because why should she care? She knows she can take anyone down if she needs to. Her confidence spills over into arrogance, actually, which some might find endearing, and others might find bitchy. She doesn't care what they think, because the only one who matters is herself. Hence, the tone of the book is her finding the limits of her confidence and abilities. While she might get knocked down from time to time, she always comes back stronger. She's also sarcastic at times, which I get from her arrogance. She sneers at people because she views them as weaker than herself.

Might be a rambling post, but it was something I was thinking about anyway. A character's voice is only one part of a book, but it can be a major part. It's not even going into the MC being an unreliable narrator, which may lie directly to the audience. I may ramble on about that in a different post.

New Naughty Book Snitch Review ~ Sorceress of Desire

Yes, finally I have gotten back on the reviewing kick after a little while of being absent. Not really absent, but I was concentrating on finishing Operation: Deep Nine and now I'm concentrating on finishing Prince of Cups. It's at 52,000 words so far... officially novel length! In two thousand words, it will officially be double the size of Queen of Swords. I'm ... really happy about that. End result? Not much time for reviewing.

Here is the review on the Naughty Book Snitch site. Check it out!

How I Plot My Novels (Part IV of IV)

The last thing I want to talk about for novel plotting deals mostly with a series of novels. As I look this up on Wikipedia, I'm rather shocked the idea of a "metaplot" is only linked to role-playing games! If you look around, metaplots are everywhere. As before, this contains spoilers for The Queen of Swords, and the upcoming The Prince of Cups, and in general the Villainess series. They won't be too bad, but I would highly recommend reading the first book so you know what I'm talking about at least.

A metaplot is an overarching storyline which each of your novels in a series goes towards building. A great example of this is the Dresden Files, where each novel adds to Harry's knowledge of this secret organization which is doing...bad things. He finds out through the course of the novels that even the enemy at the very beginning (in Storm Front) was somehow attached to the "big bad". TV series do this all the time, both with the entire series (the first 5 seasons of Supernatural were supposed to be IT, everything lead up to that finale, but the show was so popular they extended it and... well, now it's season 11; another example is Babylon 5... each season builds on the last, adding more to the lore and more to the overarching plot, but sadly that show was cancelled before it got to really resolve its metaplot) and within each season. Buffy is a great example of a season to season metaplot. Each season has a "big bad" which will ultimately be defeated on the season ender. First season, the Master. 2nd, Angelus. 3rd, the Mayor. 4th, Adam, and so on. While some books may not directly touch on the metaplot directly, each book will add to the whole.

Villainess' metaplot is tied directly to the series name: it's about Caprice's journey through life as a villain. All in all, it's a series about self-discovery, and the ups and downs of it. She starts on what people would call a "down", as she's a psychopath. Not exactly heroic material. However, I think you need to start at the bottom and work your way up. I could have started at the beginning of her career, and while I might explore that later on, for the beginning I wanted her to be confident and in control. Just like with a regular story, your metaplot needs to follow the three part act: introduction/exposition, rising action, climax. It also needs to have complications and consequences, which if you do it right, will be built in with each book.

I've the vague metaplot in mind already for Villainess, and I did when I conceived the book. I almost never do a series without a metaplot in mind, other than the anthology series I do, that is. Delilah Devilshot has a definite metaplot, the Janus Key Chronicles have a metaplot, and hell, even the Witches of Back End has a metaplot. It's lighter than the others and not as needed, but it's still there. Villainess in particular I view as a comic book, with each book serving as say, issue X in a Y part limited series. This one, because of the name I chose, is going to have sixteen books. No more, and no less. Each of the titles will relate to a particular character in the novels.

For example, Caprice is the Queen of Swords. Regulus is the Prince of Cups. Those names are chosen for a reason, and each tarot card meaning directly bears on the character. I use that site in particular, because I'm using the Aleister Crowley deck of tarot, and thus the interpretations of the cards are slightly different than if you use a different deck, like the Rider-Waite one. If we were to be specific, Caprice would be a negatively accented (or perhaps reversed) Queen. To quote:

The Queen of Swords indicates a woman who is blessed (or cursed) with sharp perception, and highly honed intuition. She is acutely analytical, with a razor-sharp ability to get to the heart of a situation, seeing exactly what is, rather than what others would wish her to see. 

She is a private woman, unwilling to let people too close to her until she is satisfied she thoroughly understands their motivations. But once won as a friend, she is unfailingly loyal, honest and supportive. 

She's usually very intelligent, with a dry sense of humour. Her penetrating insight will often reveal aspects of themselves to others that they had previously been unable to grasp - thus she is a capable therapist, teacher or leader. 

The woman represented by this card will be experienced in the flow of life, understanding a great deal about both the great triumphs, and the deepest failings of the race. Her clarity and measured expression will be of great value at times of confusion and sadness. 

Sometimes in a reading, this card will turn up to indicate a woman in a particular phase of her life, where she temporarily becomes a Sword as a result of what is happening to her. In that case the card is not quite so positively defined, for it can indicate a woman left alone, and perhaps embittered. She may be a widow, or a woman passing through the aftermath of divorce. 

In this case we often see the more negative aspects of the Queen - coldness, judgementalism, criticism. At these times there is a certain sourness about her, with cynicism and sharpness making themselves felt. 

It should be said that these qualities are inherent to the woman who is a Queen of Swords by nature too - if the woman concerned has not evolved sufficiently you will often find that the card represents a person who is hard and cold toward others.

I italicized the text which applies to Caprice, and bolded the stuff that REALLY applies to her. She's intelligent and sharp, and she "deals honest" so when she knows you're trustworthy she'll defend you. Perhaps not quite to her dying breath, but still. However, she's full of rage and bitterness because of her circumstances, some of which will become more clear in Prince of Cups.

So, looking at the next book, let's take a look at our next title character, Regulus, our Prince.

Men represented by this card are complex and powerful beings. They are self-contained - even secretive - giving an impression of calmness and serenity. However under that veneer they can often be intense and volatile. They tend to hide their deepest passions, and to protect them fiercely. 

They are often creative - artistically or musically inclined, and have deep involvement in these areas. Many of the more successful artists and musicians in our lives would come up as a Prince of Cups. 

Emotionally they can sometimes be turbulent and moody, but can also often hide their emotions and refuse to share them with others. However, having a highly developed sensitivity to emotional ups and downs, they will identify yours even before you have. Talking to somebody like this about emotional matters is usually a rewarding experience, because they are highly perceptive and use their intuition readily. 

If this card comes up to indicate an alteration in a person's behaviour, it will generally indicate a man moving into a new romantic relationship and feeling somewhat troubled by this. The Knight is the card that comes up to indicate a man happily falling in love.

From the text, we can get an impression of a smooth talker who seems calm, cool, and collected on the outside, but is a hotbed of emotion underneath. He's secretive, our Prince, and while he can't hide some things from a fellow telepath, he can still hide quite a lot since lying about it is second nature to him.

The next book in the series will be based on a character who will be introduced in Prince of Cups. She's our Princess of Wands, the Nacht Sirene, or Night Siren.

This card represents dynamic passion - for life in general. If it comes up relating to an inner energy then it will indicate that you are overcoming old fears, breaking out of old patterns, and setting yourself free. There will be confidence, decisive action, an assertive leap forward into the heart of your life. It will often come up to indicate that you have broken through habitual limitations and restrictions, thereby freeing off your power to be used constructively. 

It can indicate a spiritual breakthrough, which will always include the courage to face your fears, and see them for what they truly are. One strange fact about unacknowledged fears is that they take on the darkest, most horrifying shape with which your subconscious can imbue them. Yet when you drag them out into the light of day, you suddenly realise that what you were so scared of might a) never happen; b) not be as bad as you thought it would be when you feared it; and c) you've probably got what it takes to deal with it anyway! 

If the Princess of Wands comes up to indicate a person, then she will be strong, forceful, determined, unswerving...and perhaps a touch bossy! She is a faithful and trustworthy friend, whose insight and perception will often steer you in the right direction. She will be energetic and enthusiastic about life, with a big personality. 

As a partner she's independent, sometimes a touch stubborn, but loyal and caring. These are often career women, and usually wait till later on to start families. She will be experienced, and intelligent, though regularly you find that such young women have had to learn most of their lessons the hard way. 

As an enemy she's dangerous - she's usually outspoken, and unafraid to express her anger. If you manage to make an enemy of one of these women, you need to think very carefully about how that happened. Mostly their engagement with life is so total that they don't waste time on negative pursuits. All the Wand people place morality and ethics high on their list of priorities. They are honest decent people with a strong code of behaviour to which they adhere faithfully.

From the text, you can tell the Siren is going to be another strong woman, though perhaps a bit younger sounding and a touch more uncertain of herself than Caprice, but she has still fought through a lot of pain to realize what she wants, and how she's going to get it. She wants to live life, and she's brave enough to face her worst fears and bring them out into the sun where everyone can see.

Now that we have an idea of the characters from the next couple books, what I'm doing in particular with this series is using the "starring" characters to reflect a step in Caprice's journey. During the Prince of Cups, the image of duality or a warped mirror is used, especially when she's comparing herself to Regulus. She sees in him a "spiritual stepbrother" as he aims to fulfill his needs in any way he can, much like herself. However, unlike her, he employs mind control and breaking another person's will to achieve his goals. To this end, they mirror each other, but it's not a perfect reflection. As he hides much of his own darker desires and fears from the light, letting no one in to see, so Caprice has her own secrets, some of which will be revealed as we see more of her pain and how she got to be the way she is today.

For the third book, The Princess of Wands, the idea is that now having acknowledged she has this rage inside of her, she needs to face it. In doing so, in theory, she'll take control of it, live life more fully, and decide on what path is right for her.

The next few books are The Knight of Disks, The Queen of Disks, and The Prince of Swords, which will give you hints to the next few directions the series will go. Eventually, I will go through each of the court cards, and each of those cards will have a different "starring" supporting character, some of which you have seen already!

Has this taken a lot of planning? Yes. I think about the future books a lot, and where I want to take the character. Each step is being planned, and while I haven't gotten all the books thought of yet (as things will change as they are written), it's important to see your end goal in sight. Where do you want the series to go? Is there a big climatic battle at the end, ala Lord of the Rings? Or is it a journey of self-discovery, concentrating on just one character? Are there multiple storylines to be resolved eventually? How complex are you going to make it?

In general, the more complex metaplot demands more books. But once you have reached the conclusion of the meta, then stop. Just stop. Don't let it go on (*coughcoughLaurellKHamiltoncough*) just because you want to keep writing the character. Once the conclusion has been logically reached, it's the end of the series. After that, it should be happily ever after. Or unhappily ever after.

So, how do you think of a metaplot? For Villainess, as I said before, it's a journey of self-discovery by Caprice. Others might think there's a big world devouring monster out there, or maybe a nefarious super villain organization which is bent on world domination. You can find a lot of inspiration from movies, television, and other books. Once you get a grand idea in your head, then you plot it like you'd plot your novel. The main exception is to use broader strokes.

For Villainess, the first four books are basically my introduction/exposition. We are introduced to the main characters, recurring characters like Nosferatu, Malech, and Alistair (and eventually Siren and Regulus), and we learn about the world slowly, in bits and pieces. Once the stage is set, the next is the rising action. During the next few books after that, we'll say 4-8 or so, Caprice will be built up (and fall down, she's not always a victor) and realize that she needs to change. Since it's a personal self-discovery thing, it's more internal and a little harder to fully plot. This may or may not accompany a "big bad" which she may take several books to defeat (still working on it), so it might have a metaplot within a metaplot. Submetaplot? Hrm.

The last few books will be heading towards the conclusion of her journey. What will be the deciding factor in what she chooses? Will she be able to leave her rage and hatred behind? If so, does that mean she has to be "normal"? IS it more desirable for her to be "normal" as opposed to a psychopath? Who or what will help in deciding this? Will she change for the sake of herself, or for someone else?

Again, this one is more... internal, but you can plot out the big bad just the same way. The first few books hint at a darkness rising. The middle books show more aggression, and battles won and lost, which finally reveal the main villain. The last few deal with gathering power to take down said villain and then the ultimate climax.

What's most important to keep in mind is to keep your books in line with the metaplot. Even if it only hints at it, people need to see that, yes, it was planned from the beginning. If you're clever and vague enough, you CAN go back to past books and point at things which you may not have known was there or had no reason and give it a reason. For example, in Storm Front, there is a guy who channels a lot of power, goes crazy, kills some folks, Harry stops him. It was sufficiently explained at the time where he got it. However, in a later book, it was revealed that these agents of darkness were working WITH that mad sorceror at the time, and helped him to achieve that power for their own nefarious purposes. Butcher can't go back and rewrite Storm Front to add in hints of spooky darkness, so he flipped the reason why the sorceror got his power in a later book, with an additional explanation. Was he planning it from the beginning or backwriting? I have no idea. Whichever way he went, he's definitely leading towards a metaplot climax now, and he used all of his stories to bring that in focus.

Last thing to be said, unlike the plots in the book where each word should go towards building plot, character, or mood... but especially plot... you can, of course, go off on side roads during your novels. Not every novel will directly bear on the metaplot, especially the beginning ones while you are setting it up. This gives you an opportunity to leave things open, to drop hints which you may not know WHY you are dropping them, but may give you inspiration later on. The great thing about that is that you can build without knowing exactly where you are building to, or knowing the direct path. Yeah, you have an idea of a "big bad" whatever at the end, but maybe you're not quite certain what it is during your first novel, but you have a cool idea. You drop in a line or two nodding towards the cool idea, and that's it. Maybe on book three you'll remember that idea and build on it. Maybe book five. Maybe you'll decide to go another way. Little hooks and throwaway lines can often be your subconscious talking to you about what you are planning before you even know you are planning it.

It's a little harder to keep a metaplot on track during the course of a series, but thankfully, you don't have to all the time!

How I Plot My Novels (Part III of IV)

There's an actual number now associated with these posts! This one will deal with the climax and denouement, and the last one dealing with what I call the "metaplot".

Act III: Climax
The climax is pretty easy to explain: it's the climax of the book, the big O, the main event, what everything else in the book was leading up to. In this case, it's confronting Harry about the betrayal. Being Caprice is who she is, she at first wanted to see if she could sleep with him again. It wasn't just because he was a good lay and the book has definite erotic overtones, but to test his character again. Saying flat out that his girlfriend was looking for him, and then seducing him anyway proved to her that he wasn't a "good" person. I use quotes here, because Caprice's judgment of people is rather skewed. What she means by "good" is not what you and I mean.

In both cases though, it means untrustworthy and dishonest. She even says at the end, that her father always taught her to deal honest with fellow criminals. A deal's a deal and all that. It wasn't just the betrayal, but also the fact that he didn't pay her when he did the job. It was using her to get what he wanted without being straight forward about it.

Everything in this book led up to the climax where we see how twisted she is. I am not going to write in detail about sexual sadism which is non-consensual, so I let it fade to black and let the reader's imagination take over. Some might call that a cop-out, but I don't write noncon stuff, nor torture. I may switch that up if the situation calls for it, but for now even though the series is dark, it's not THAT dark.

The last part is something people don't necessarily think about separately, which is the denouement. To use it in sexual terms, the denouement is the smoke after the big O. The book should naturally lead towards a satisfying ending, and we should see the character either changed or not changed from the experience. Traditionally, it should show the character better off than when they started. In this case, it is true. The betrayer is defeated, and Caprice has new knowledge of this mysterious group of people who are after her. Her paranoia in moving around and losing tails is justified. We see her leaving Harry's apartment while Emily enters, and taking sadistic pleasure in Emily's discovery of Harry's body, telepathically. It gives the character a satisfactory ending, at least from her point of view.

Everything in either the climax or denouement should have been built from the previous prose. This is why going back and editing to make sure your facts line up and to drop hints (ie, the clean apartment) about the ending is so vitally important. There may be loose ends and threads hanging loose, which is good if the book is a part of a series. If it is a standalone book, a single novel with no plans for future installments, then you MUST go back and eliminate or resolve any of those loose threads. They are simply not needed, period, and will leave people wondering what happened with those. For a series, it's vital to have at least a couple of threads hanging loose to continue. It gives the serial author a jumping off point for their next book, and helps to fuel the metaplot (which is discussed in the next post).

Should the protagonist always win during the climax? No. It really depends on the theme of the book, but sometimes the protagonist fails. Again, in a series, that is a great jumping off point for the next book or books, because then the protagonist must dust themselves off and retry. For a standalone book... most people would want the protagonist to win. We journeyed through the book with them, and we naturally root for the hero. That, of course, is up to the writer. People can have victory through defeat, and defeat through victory. I would almost always recommend the hero have victory in a standalone book simply because it tends to be more satisfying for the reader. For a series, it's debatable. It might be a case of 'win the battle, lose the war' sort of deal.

Much of it depends on personal taste. For Queen of Swords, I wanted Caprice to come out on top. Future books, she may not. We'll just have to see.

How I Plot My Novels (Part II of Some Number, Might be III, Might be More)

Back again with more novel plotting! I'm using my book Queen of Swords as an example, so if you haven't read it yet, there are spoilers, massive ones, so read that first, then come back and read the blog post.

Act II: Confrontation and "Rising Action"
So, now we begin act two, and in Queen of Swords, it was pretty non explosive. At this point in a movie, the big bad has been revealed and the heroes are working towards defeating it, which will be resolved in the third act or the climax of the movie. For Queen of Swords it was a little different. I think in general writing about villains is a little different because they are active while heroes are reactive. I wanted to keep Caprice active. She's working towards a goal, she's doing things, and thus I had her go out to find her sword.

I just want to stop for a moment and speak about that. Many people don't consciously realize how passive heroes are for the most part. And when heroes turn active, that's when it starts to delve into areas which speculative fiction excels. For example, Superman cannot catch criminals before they do a crime. If he were to do so, then he would be the villain because he would 1) be breaking the law and 2) turning active. There are positive ways in which heroes can affect the world, through inspiration, through community programs, and through education, but in general, all of those are passive. They sow the seeds and wait patiently for change. When Superman decides to go and change the world actively, he's seen as a tyrant who forces people into obeying the law. He's no longer a hero, but a villain. For a more complex look at this, I suggest the movie Minority Report. I haven't read the story it was based off of, but even the movie raises questions about criminalizing thoughts and behavior before it actually happens.

Anyway, even if I had decided to keep Caprice reactive, there would have been some things which would have happened anyway, spurring her to action. She would still have lost her sword, and Nosferatu would have come out once dark hit anyway... but Harry would still have been missing, and Emily would have still confronted her. Taking that line of thought further down, Emily would likely have kept harassing Caprice until Caprice decided to either end her (more likely) or found Harry (way less likely). So, for a villain, while the story would have been extended a bit more, it would not have been as provocative. For a hero, the story ends when the big bad is defeated. When the protagonist is the big bad, it's a little harder to keep them motivated and moving.

At this point, I had decided that Caprice, as all protagonists, is something special, something extra. I didn't know what exactly, so I hinted at it saying these people were trying to get her for whatever reason. I also knew she had to keep moving. To this end, I used her desire to get her sword back to lead her to Alistair. Alistair gave her the complication of it wasn't just one thing she lost, but three. The first was her sword, and this was an easy thing for her to get. Someone brought it home from work. She killed the people in the house and reclaimed it. That is a complication which bears fruit in Prince of Cups as a consequence. Using the consequence in this way too gives Caprice a realization that she can't always work alone and needs someone to watch her back, which is an opportunity for character growth.

The second thing was Nosferatu. This helped me to define his character and limitations a bit--he can only change back when he's got enough blood in his system--and made for a sexy time in the basement, sort of. They negotiated a deal, and there is another complication (and betrayal! Keeping in with the theme of our book) when she finds out that now that he's bitten her, he can find her whenever he wants. This complication will also arise in Prince of Cups, and in future books as well. The last was Harry, of course, having been captured and having the tech taken out of him. Well, that was their intent anyway, but they had to keep him alive until they could extract the nanotech, and thus he was put into a storage tank, effectively neutralizing him.

To get to this, Caprice had to sneak back in. When she rescued Harry, they did have a bit of a fight, but it wasn't too horrible, and escape. Seems like it should be the action part right? Part of this rising action? The rising action in this case is the rescue AND being confronted by Emily afterwards. Those two things make Caprice realize what is going on here, and that he sold her out in some way. After that, it leads to the climax of the book. Events that lead directly to the climax is the rising action. They should, if you can, always escalate. In this case, it actually de-escalated a bit, and while I wasn't happy with how it came out, it had to be this way. There had to be an outside source telling Caprice what was up, and the character of Emily had always been planned as the hapless girlfriend. Harry "cheating" on her tells us more about his character, and it tells us about Emily as well.

I know if I had thought of a more actiony way to do it, I would be happier with the book for it, but sometimes... there has to be a side character guiding your protagonist. Shit does just happen in real life. Coincidences, bad timing, all of that. It was bad timing for Harry, cause his secret got revealed.

However, let's say that didn't happen. Let's say Caprice rescued him and Emily didn't find her to confront her. Eventually, Caprice would have figured out she hadn't been paid, and if Harry is smart (he is pretty crafty), he would have just paid her and been done with it. Either that or try to lure her into a trap again. I think the reason why I didn't choose this option is because it avoided Emily altogether and while she's not important NOW, she will be making at least one future appearance. The second is that getting a payment is not interesting. If she had beat it out of him, sure, but the character of Harry is smart enough to know when to cut his losses. If he had tried to lure her into a trap, he would have done so in such a way she wouldn't be able to escape easily. That might have been more exciting... but in all honesty, it would have been the end to the series. These guys after her aren't fucking around. They would have been prepared. She would have been caught, and that would be that. Without back-up, operating as she did at this point in the series, no one would have missed her.

Thus, I went with the less interesting option in this particular case. It serves a purpose, and while I wish I could have come up with a better option, I stand by what I wrote.

The confrontation with Emily, of course, seems pretty one-sided, but Caprice is the narrator and we understand things from her perspective, filtered through her sight. Even though the other woman is harsh, it tells us she knows Harry's a cheat, and knew he was planning something. It also tells us that for whatever reason, Emily is his confidant. There's a more complex relationship going on there which is only hinted at, but from Caprice's POV it's one of a shrill and jealous girlfriend keeping tabs on her man.

I think I'll cover the climax in the next segment, which will probably be the last. Or second to last. I might make a separate post about the metaplot, and perhaps give away some spoilers to come in the future.

How I Plot My Novels (Part I of I Don't Know How Many)

Although technically I haven't written any novels under this pen name yet, I have written novels. Lots of them. Some of them bad, some of them not so bad. Some might even see the light of day sometime. Bryce and I, writer BFFs that we are, were talking about The Prince of Cups, as I had given him my first draft to look over when he expressed interest. It's at around 24-25K words right now, and he read it over and gave me one of the best compliments I've ever gotten. Conversation went something like this:

Me: Hey, so you thought it was good?
Bryce: Yeah, that would be an understatement.
Me: lol Told you I only barely started touching the main plot.
Bryce: *bows before you*
Me: lol I think you're overselling me.
Bryce: My plotting is so simple.
Me: I worry I plot too much!
Bryce: Mine is just kill and fuck!
Me: But that's ok too!

Basically, the compliment was that my plot was complex for it, which is awesome! We went on to talk about it, and how I have a whole metaplot in mind for the Villainess series (like I do with Delilah as well), and that I have the first six or so books lined up. The further away from where I am now the more vague they are, but I still have the plot in mind, and a goal I'm working towards. Whether it stays the same or not over time, we'll see.

Then I said I was thinking of making a blog post about how I wrote stuff like that, and he said he'd be interested. :P I was going to write it anyway, but Bryce, this is for you. :D

First things first: you gotta have an idea. It can be as simple as "I want to write about a bad ass villain", which is kinda the basis of Villainess. Once you have the idea, figure out what appeals to you about it. I'm going to use Queen of Swords as my main example here, so if you haven't read it yet, there are spoilers in this post for the book. You've been warned.

Next, figure out your characters. I almost always start with the enemy first, the antagonist. In the case of a series here, obviously Caprice will always be the protagonist, and she'll face off against different enemies. When creating Queen of Swords, I knew EXACTLY who I wanted as an enemy, which ultimately was Harry, the deceiver. I also knew I wanted to have a couple of side characters that interested me, and to sort of expand the universe without explaining about it. It's always better to show rather than tell, and exposition is something you should try to avoid. Now, I used exposition to describe Caprice, since she's our narrator, but that was written for me to get a lock on the character. I will often write scenes or dialogues with the main protagonists so I can get into their heads, and in this case I thought I'd just leave it in, as it explained the world and the character, even if it was a bit long.

So, with Harry, I wanted him to come off as being a relatively nice guy, someone who's cute and funny, kinda dangerous but not really. Towards the end, it would be revealed that he was just manipulating her in order to get a bigger payday. Made a mistake and got screwed. Literally. Literally in a couple ways. >.>

Right away now I have an idea that they are going to somehow meet up or do something together, then he'll betray her, and because she's a bad ass villain, she'll have her revenge. Right there is the basic outline for Queen of Swords:

1. Introduction -- introducing Caprice and the world
2. Set-up -- her and Harry "do something" together, since they're villains it's probably going to be stealing or killing.
3. Betrayal -- the "twist" as it is, which leads into...
4. Her Revenge -- the climax

Every book has three main acts. Every story has three main acts. Those parts have to be addressed in order to have a satisfying story. Once I get the gist (see above) of what's going on, then I start to fill in each act on its own, in order.

The First Act: Exposition, Character Introductions, Inciting Incident

 The first act for Queen of Swords is basically Caprice getting a job from Harry to steal a gizmo. Since I'd written some words in Caprice's voice, and I had gotten to know her as a character, I started to think, "Where would she be?" Well, she'd be where she would get a contact or a job. Thus I had to start thinking about setting more. Now, in this case, I am blatantly stealing ideas and twisting them for my own purposes from City of Heroes/Villains. Yes, a video game. Because there had to be some way for criminals to get in touch with each other, and I myself am not a criminal and don't know these things, I thought about what would make the most sense. Well, like an underground network, right? Makes sense?

Taking the idea of something underground, below the radar, I stole the idea of a huge dance club for meta humans from City of Heroes: Pocket D. There are references which CoH players may get in there, and Virtueites in particular... such as not going in the bathrooms. Ew. In that game, Pocket D was an interdimensional night club that both sides could access. For a long time, that was the only way you could interact with a villain if you were a hero, and vice versa.

Now that idea didn't work for me, in the slightest. I wanted this place to be much darker, and bigger, like no one knows how big it is. No one except Malech knows, and he changes it. It is still interdimensional, but people don't' know that. They just think it's underground, which is where I got the name from: The Underground. It's not just a double entendre, but a triple one. Underground because of the criminal element which dominates, the entrances go underground in the real world... and it's actually his layer of hell, which one could consider the spiritual underground. There are private rooms for people to conduct business or fuck in. There are dance parties and dance floors and shit. There are a ton of bars. In the second book, Prince of Cups, it's actually shown the warping capabilities Malech has in his domain, as Caprice climbs up a bunch of stairs, says fuck it and turns around, and the door is there. Is it him warping space? Or warping her mind? Who knows? I haven't decided yet.

At this point I stopped and thought about the mood of the piece. I wanted it dark and sexy. Caprice is psycho, and she loves killing. She loves fucking. Along with mood, we need a theme. To go with the mood, I chose the themes of "You can't trust anyone" and "Nothing is ever free.". Without exception, everyone in the book Caprice meets or interacts with wants something from her, and may or may not be willing to go to violence to get it. Taking our examples, Michael/Nosferatu wants to fuck her (or kill her, maybe both), and fights her for dominance. When he's "trapped" in the apartment building underground, Nosferatu wants her blood in order to replenish himself. They end up brokering a deal, sort of a favor for a favor. She doesn't trust him to respect her boundaries, not that she has many other than "don't kill me".

Alistair, the mage, basically withholds his services unless she gives him her services.

Harry, of course, is the betrayer. While he hires her straight up for a job (nothing is free), he ends up arranging to turn her in to some strangers who are hunting her (can't trust anyone). After Emily runs into her (where the theme is repeated but on Emily's side... Emily was ALSO betrayed in this), then Caprice becomes a form of the betrayer in taking her revenge. She could have given him a chance to fight, but why? She does what he intended to do to her: seduce him, and then kill him.

When you figure out your theme, the more you can repeat it subtly through the book, the stronger it will be. But subtly. Don't hammer it over people's heads all the time.

Now, having some settings and ideas about the mood/theme, I concentrated on supporting characters. Caprice was introduced, and we would get to Harry by the end of the intro, but that wasn't enough. To this end, I introduced Nosferatu. I like Nos. He's one of my favorites (and may be based loosely on a friend I used to know, a long time ago). I wanted to add someone else who was a bad ass in there, on the same level or more powerful than Caprice, but who didn't care so much about money. His motivation for being a villain is completely different than hers. He's also technically two characters in one, his human host being Michael, and the vampire spirit/ghost Nosferatu. Even though it wasn't expressed explicitly, they also reflect the theme. When Michael comes back into control after Nosferatu feeds on Caprice, he states that she shouldn't have done that. When she asks why, he says that Nos can find her anywhere now. A mini-betrayal, as Nosferatu didn't tell her that. This will set up complications for later books.

I also wanted someone else, a contact for her to find information. This lead me to make Alistair, which I'll go into in the next post (as this one is getting too long). I couldn't think of anything else offhand, so I went ahead and started writing.

Much of my process is in my head. I keep track of very long plot lines and hooks because I keep telling myself the story and changing things as I see fit. Some people may find it easier to write down notes. I do this occasionally as well, but they are generally brief. However, because it's in my head, sometimes it seems easy or non-complicated until I see it all written down and go, "Yeah, this isn't going to work." Be watchful of that, and pay attention to opportunities to complicate things for your characters. The whole idea of the complication is what led me to use Alistair later on, and why I chose three things. But again, that's next post.

At this point, while I was writing, I got Nosferatu's and Harry's characteristics down. I changed some stuff as I needed while I wrote and went into the job. The question of why the job in the first place when Harry could just turn her in bothered me, so I created the reason he needed the item: he's a "meta" too, or actually, someone using super science to augment himself. Since he's a criminal, I had him steal it. But since it wasn't installed properly, he needed some widgit to fix it. Thus, when the opportunity came for a payday, he saw another opportunity to get something he wanted first by using a couple of talented individuals as well as himself to break into Titan.

By creating that reason, I created a complication for Harry. Now, it may not be important for Caprice's story since he ends up killed, but stuff like that is what I mean by creating complications. Even if it touches on a side character, how that character then acts will be changed, which may in turn affect your plot or your protagonist.

I cannot stress how important this two minute video is. It encapsulates the idea of complications and how they affect the story. Watch it. Then watch it again. Watch it over and over again and memorize this: The importance of "Therefore" and "But". Everything is either a consequence or a complication.

Using their pretty simple system, what we have for Queen of Swords actually starts with Harry, believe it or not. Harry gets an offer to turn in Caprice, BUT he needs some widget to fix himself THEREFORE he hires Caprice and Nosferatu to steal it with him BUT during a fight the trio are separated and Caprice loses her sword THEREFORE she goes to Alistair to find it BUT finds out she has "lost" other things... and so on and so on.

The end of the first act is actually where the motivation focus goes from Harry's motivation (betray Caprice/get his widget) to Caprice's motivation (find her lost sword). If you look at it in this way, the first act has three separate beats itself: Getting hired, the fight, the aftermath/sexy times/denouement in Harry's apartment. I could have stopped the story there. And for a long time I did. I wrote this in fits and spurts, and when I came to the end of the sexy times, I wasn't sure where to go with it. At this point, I didn't know Harry was going to betray Caprice, not ... like he did. I knew something else had to happen, but I wasn't sure what. So, I shelved the story and worked on other things while I figured it out.

When it hit me that "Hey, she's the lead, so she's special, right? How special IS she? Are the other people looking for her? And if so, who are they?" caused me to go back and revisit the story. This is more for the next section, but I wanted to mention that because as soon as I thought of the idea, I went back and rewrote sections of the Harry's apartment scene. Originally, it was furnished. Not well, but furnished. And dirty, as if he hadn't been there in a while. I changed it up so that it was clean and not really furnished at all, which gives the audience to think that maybe something isn't right here, yet be subtle enough people might not catch it. And again, this adds a complication for Caprice down the line, in future books.

A last thing, and this goes to editing. Everything you write should either go to character development, plot development, or theme/mood development. If a word you write doesn't add to any of those? Cut it. Some writers would say to cut the mood or theme too, as those would tie into the plot, but that's not necessarily true. I recently read a book which the plot was... not awesome, but the mood of the book was dark, and I really enjoyed that. If the author hadn't spent time building the mood, I would have put it down. I find it's more important to build mood for tragedies, horror, and romances than it is for other genres, but each have their own beats and moods to learn.

New Teaser!

Still messing around with making teasers, now that I have a breather. I should be writing. SHOULD BE WRITING, ME. But I made a teaser instead. I don't think I have the "sexy" part down on it though.

Here it is, based off of the first Villainess book: The Queen of Swords. This one is for Nosferatu, who was a lot harder to find pictures for than I thought. Sid Vicious? No, too small. Billy Idol? Way too blonde. And just not... "right". I ended up with a side profile of a random mohawked punk. It works. I think? And of course, like Regulus, Nosferatu's got a couple different sides to him. In this case, it's two souls actually inhabiting one body, not just different personality aspects. 

I May Be a Bitch, but I'm Not Amazon's Bitch

... mostly. Yeah, there's still stuff of mine in KU. I'm not pulling them. I'm sticking to my plan as originally intended of letting them expire 'naturally', but as I was sitting here thinking writing fox smut, I thought, "What if I developed a series JUST for a specific distributor NOT Amazon?" The one that came to mind at first was Excitica, of course. I would really like to help indie distributors as well. I'm not saying I'm awesome and yeah, like totally everyone would come aboard, but it would help to get the word out to other distributors rather than just Amazon.

The problem is: I'd be limiting myself to something that's not Amazon. I mean, let's face it, it's got the lion's share of the ebook program. I think I could contact the administrator of the site and ask a question like, "Hey, if I limit this one particular series to JUST here, could I get a bump in visibility?" I mean, it's worth a shot, right? Of course, if it were someone who were much bigger, I think that'd be a yes, but people gotta start somewhere. But someone like Reed could do it, maybe. Some of his stuff seems popular. There's another writer who writes some really good shit, Oleander I think their name was, maybe they could. I'm a nothing right now.

Of course, Excitica has its problems at the moment too. For one, which is majorly annoying, I cannot check to see if I've actually sold something there. It's... there's an error in the order history page. Hence, no stats. I could be moving a ton of books there. I could be moving nothing (a far more likely scenario). I have no idea. The interface isn't as intuitive as Smashwords or Amazon, or even B&N, and B&N (Nook) has a stupidly complex interface for no particular reason, which you have to save on every page. I went through one of my books by hitting 'next', and realized after the fact I have to hit 'save', THEN 'next'. (or whatever the stupid buttons are called) Haven't done D2D or any other platforms yet, because I got lazy. Eventually I'll get around to it.

Second problem, it's a small distributor. If I write something exclusive and it never gets seen... what good is that?

However, it IS a place where shifters can have sex in shifter form. Incest is OK. Sick, depraved shit is OK, to a point. No underage (totally gross, so I agree with that). No necrophilia (except for "vampires", I wonder if other sentient undead are ok, or if they're just deadist? It would be like letting only lipstick lesbians into a place and banning all other gay people. Or only big beautiful brunettes in, and no to skinny redheads, and so on. I would have to think sentient undead would be alright. I mean, ghuls need love too! What about ghosts? Revenants? Zombies? Ok, most zombies are sentient, but some are!)... where was I? Hm. Underage, necrophilia, what else was banned? Oh, yeah, beastiality is still a no-no, but I would assume that's only for real life animals, not mythological ones. And shifters in were form are totes OK. Selena Kitt herself said so! I can also attest going through their categories for how to tag the books I have put up there, they have tags for shit I have never even heard of. So, fellow writer friend of mine who is obsessed with futas--there's a category for that! There's a category for incest, and for scat fetishes and many, many, MANY varieties of BDSM.

So, that's an advantage. I mean, you can kinda let loose there. I don't think anything they ban is anything I would write about... maybe the necrophilia (especially if ghuls or other sentient undead don't count; stupid vampires hogging all the fun), but that would be more at home in one of my horror books anyway.

Now, the last big drawback for Excitica: it's not running https. As in the link is NOT secure. I know a lot of people have balked at that, and I really hope they change it. People's personal info is in there, man, so that could potentially be dangerous.

Anyway, all of that was a thought. I do refuse to be Amazon's bitch. If it means I just fucking sell shit and pull everything out anyway, so be it. I think I will write an exclusive for one of these other platforms, see who might follow or who I might discover. It may even be Delilah's. Her story is still brewing in my head. I see the first few very easily... Maybe it'll be Caprice in Villainess/Queen of Swords. That's almost done too, and it's pretty plot heavy. Plus, she's a fucking psycho. She might be made for a place with a harder edge than Amazon.