September 10, 2012

The quintet that isn’t

Filed under: articles,bloggery,eBooks,how I write,Rights of Passage — Rhiannon Lassiter @ 8:16 pm

I have written three Rights of Passage novels: Borderland (2002), Outland (2003) and Shadowland (2005). It is now 2012 and I haven’t completed the quintet.

There are many reasons for series fiction to remain incomplete.

Sometimes the author has an open ended series (e.g. Discworld or The Culture) in which case it’s not so much incomplete as each book can stand alone. This is not true of the Rights of Passage series although ironically it is true of the Hex/Void trilogy which has since been bound up as a single volume. Right of Passage was my first and only attempt at writing a series with cliff-hangers. Perhaps this is why its sales were disappointing? Either way I haven’t embarked on another series since.

Perhaps the author has other projects on the go. George R R Martin and his fan base fell out with each other over the fans demands for more Ice and Fire novels and their criticism of Martin for working on anything else. On the one hand I completely appreciate (and share) their frustration, on the other hand writing cannot be produced on command.

Perhaps the author can’t afford to write it. You need funding to write professionally. Each of my Rights of Passage novels was funded via an advance on royalties from the publishing company and they can’t afford to fund future books if the sales of the first three don’t merit it. These are lean times for publishing and unfortunately the audience isn’t always there for every book. But without someone paying me to do it, I cannot afford to write. I put aside time for my writing and rely on other work for a regular income stream. This means that for me to invest time in writing I need to know the work is viable: in that there is an audience and a market for it. This is the same, but writ large for publishers.

Perhaps the author doesn’t know how to finish the books. After a gap of seven years this is entirely a possibility for me but it’s not been tested. I had a plan for how to finish these books and I remember a lot of it and I even have notes towards them. But with each year that passes it becomes less likely that I will complete the series if only because my writing evolves and I might be danger of pastiching my own style in returning to an earlier one. These are the risks of series fiction and why I now concentrate on novels which don’t depend on sequels.
The quintet that isn’t consists of three published titles: Borderland, Shadowland and Outland. Two books remain unwritten: Heartland and Lands End.

Is indie publishing the way to get these books into reality?

January 24, 2012

VOID is out in the US

Filed under: Hex,Hex: Ghosts,Hex: Shadows,United States,VOID — Rhiannon Lassiter @ 6:15 pm

VOID bannerThe Hexes are back! VOID, the bindup edition of all three Hex books was published in the US by Simon & Schuster in November 2011.

You can buy VOID from Amazon.com for just $9.99 (the equivalent of £6.40). If you buy a copy please take the time to leave a review on the Amazon.com review page.

It’s an omnibus of all three Hex titles with a brand new dedication. If you sailed on the SS RHI you’ll want a copy of VOID. There’s one small textual change – an interesting one – which I’ll write more about later.

And there’s film interest. So now’s the time to boost the signal and help the books find their new audience.

Read more about VOID on its book page on my website. Or visit the Hex trilogy page for extra content including downloads, game characters and videos.

March 8, 2011

Enter the VOID

Filed under: covers,Hex,Hex: Ghosts,Hex: Shadows,things Rhiannon likes,United States — Tags: — Rhiannon Lassiter @ 12:00 pm

I’ve been really looking forward to showing this to people. It’s the cover of the US bindup of the Hex trilogy which will be published by Simon and Schuster later this year. It’ll be called VOID (a new overtitle for the series).

Doesn’t it look amazing? I’m really pleased with this and can’t wait until it comes out.

VOID cover

January 14, 2011

My mother said…

Filed under: Ghost of a Chance,links,reviews of my books — Rhiannon Lassiter @ 10:44 am

My mother, children’s writer Mary Hoffman, has reviewed Ghost of a Chance on her blog – and most flatteringly, which she promises is not nepotism!

You can also read a short piece by me about how I came to write the book.

Both blog post and my comments contain a spoiler – although the same one you’d get from reading the blurb of the book.

January 7, 2011

Competition winner announcement

Filed under: competition,Ghost of a Chance — Rhiannon Lassiter @ 12:06 pm

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Ghost of a Chance competition yesterday. It was a strong field with lots of great answers. But in the end I’ve decided that the winner is… ::: drum roll ::

CANDY GOURLAY!
Her answer was: “The best way to solve a murder is to be there at the time. Sadly this might mean you won’t be anywhere else for the foreseeable future.”

Well done, Candy! Email me your address (you can use the contact form on this website) and I’ll send you your signed copy of Ghost of a Chance. I’m impressed with your answer – and with your confidence that you would win!

If you competed but were unsuccessful, look out for another book giveaway in the LibraryThing early reviewers January batch when there’ll be ten more copies on offer.

January 6, 2011

Happy Ghost of a Chance day to me!

Filed under: book release,competition,Ghost of a Chance — Rhiannon Lassiter @ 9:35 am

Ghost of a Chance coverToday is Ghost of a Chance day: my new book has been published. (Officially now, Amazon jumped the gun a bit.)

The wonderful, talented Sara Wallcraft has designed special friezes for my Ghost of a Chance webpage, one of the Chance house, one of some beautiful peacocks. Do make sure to check it out.

You can also find a sample chapter of the book. Hopefully once you’ve read it, you’ll be inspired to rush out and immediately buy a copy.

But for one lucky person there could be a free copy heading your way. To celebrate, I’m announcing a competition to win a signed copy of the book. For your chance to win, comment on my blog with your answer to the question “What’s the best way to solve a murder?” Winners will be announced tomorrow at 9am GMT, to give everyone time to take part. (Make sure to comment on the blog itself, not on the Facebook syndicated version.) If you’ve already ordered a copy, why not have a go anyway and win a copy for a friend or family member?

Happy Ghost of a Chance day to me and to all of you!

Edited to add: Ghost of a Chance is already Book of the Week at new crime blog Crime Central!

Competition entrants, please make sure to check back tomorrow to see if you’re the winner because I will need to get your street address from you to send you your prize!

January 3, 2011

Happy New Year and countdown to Ghost of a Chance!

Filed under: book release,Ghost of a Chance,links,news,reviews of my books — Rhiannon Lassiter @ 4:59 pm

WordPress has sent an email to tell me my blog was “fresher than ever” in 2010, which is nice. Unfortunately I think they are still working from the figures from my old hosted account, not my current embedded one. But perhaps that means my blog is even fresher than WordPress thinks?

Ghost of a Chance coverIt’s 3 days until the publication of Ghost of a Chance and I’ll be celebrating here on my blog so stop by and leave a comment. Amazon started shipping it in December although due to the snow some of those copies are trapped in warehouses. But if you’ve got your copy and have read it already I’d be especially interested to know what you think.

I’ll also be posting the first chapter on my webpage for the book: Ghost of a Chance. So if you haven’t got a copy you can try it out. My artist friend is hard at work designing a new frieze for the webpage which should be online shortly. The book has a peacock theme and so too will the frieze.

One website, The Bookbag, has already posted a review of Ghost of a Chance – and recommended it, thanks Robert James!

I’ve been three years writing this book – a long time for me! And I’m very excited to know what people think of it. I can’t quite believe it’s almost publication day!

September 21, 2010

The angel of death comes for the parents in children’s fiction

Leila Sales, assistant editor at Penguin Young Readers Group , writes about The Ol’ Dead Dad Syndrome in Publishers Weekly.

It is not believable that so many kids are missing one, if not both parents. Slews of them! Hundreds! To quote Oscar Wilde, sort of: “To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose a parent in nearly every children’s book looks like lazy writing.”

I agree with two of her reasons for calling it lazy writing: “First, a dead parent is one fewer character to have to write.” and Second, there’s the instant sympathy factor.. Where we diverge is on Leila’s third point: “Third, grownups are boring.” although she does suggest later that authors could try to “Write parents who actually have something to contribute to the story, who aren’t just a barrier between the kids and fun.”

I don’t think grown-ups are intrinsically boring but they do get in the way in children’s fiction. I think the reason so many authors write them out is because they want their child and teenager characters to solve their own problems, to find their own answers and face their own fears and the role of a good parent is to help with those things. That said, I have by-and-large not played the Angel of Death to the parents in my fiction because I find it more of a challenge to keep them in the text but leave them unable to intervene. In Waking Dream the death of one parent triggers the action, the other parents are at first unaware of what’s happening, then later aware but unable to influence events, reading their children’s stories through diaries that report their ongoing adventures. In Bad Blood the parents are too caught up in the emotional struggle of the family to identify the supernatural elements, they too must wait and worry when the teenager characters are reported missing.

In my forthcoming novel Ghost of a Chance I do admittedly write out two parents. An unknown father is never mentioned and a mother is dead before my heroine knew her. But in neither case were they active, caring and much missed parents. The real parental figure is a grandfather who is hospitalised early in the narrative, keeping him from meddling in my central character’s evolution. Other characters have perfectly functional living parents and have to lie to them to keep them from intervening in the plot.

I really do enjoy the challenge of including parents in children’s books and including them as real people rather than the “clueless or uninvolved” ciphers Leila suggests as a possibility. It’s not a binary choice between parents as all-knowing entities who can solve every problem or hapless and hopeless nonentities. I much prefer them as humans, muddling along between the gutter and the stars. This is one of the reasons I like Margaret Mahy so much. In The Changeover, Catalogue of the Universe and The Tricksters the parents are real people, flawed but trying to do better. Laura’s mother is frantic over the advancing illness of her younger child, Tycho’s parents have given their attention to their charismatic turbulent daughter and pay less attention to their quiet younger son, Harry’s parents are trying to get past a private and personal crisis.

Leila’s piece makes me want to challenge the absenteeism of parents. What if the parents followed you through the hole in the wall? Came along on the quest? Fought the monsters and won – or lost? What effect would that have on the child character, and on the child reader?

August 4, 2010

Polish YouTube review of Bad Blood

Filed under: Bad Blood,Poland,video,YouTube — Rhiannon Lassiter @ 9:53 am

I found this on the internet a couple of weeks ago but didn’t post about it until I could ask my Polish editor what it said. I had an email from her a couple of days ago and she says that it’s a good review (whew!).

According to Natalia: “They are talking about what’s there in your book, about the characters, the plot. But they are also saying that you’ve managed to write something new in spite of the fact that the genre which you used (horror) is not at all easy, because it is so conventional. And you – you wrote Bad
Blood in a very fresh way.”

So that’s all good. I’m glad the book seems to be doing well in Poland!

May 12, 2010

Hex: the film

I have some exciting news for Hex fans. Ever since the trilogy was first published I’ve had letters from fans asking me if there could be a film of the books – there’s at least one thread on the forums about it. Last week I agreed the first stage of a film option for the Hex trilogy.

The film company developing the property is called Sweet Revenge and they are based in Hollywood. On the eve of the Clarke award ceremony I had  a conversation with producer Isadora Martin-Dye who has loved the books since they first came out and is really enthusiastic about the project. This is great news for the fans because it means that the creative vision doesn’t involve making significant changes to the work. If Raven hits the screen she’ll be her own cantankerous self.

I say if because there’s a long way to go with this project. It’s in the earliest of early stages and there’s a lot of work to be done. Luckily for me, I’ve already done my bit – now it’s up to Isadora and the rest of her team to put in place the things one needs to make a major feature film. They will be keeping me informed and involved though so I’ll report more as I hear more news.

I expect fans will have a lot of questions and I’ll try and anticipate some of them here since some were things I wanted to know myself:

Q: Will there be one film or three (one for each book)?
A: The option will be for the whole trilogy. Right now we’re planning for one film but which would take elements from the world of all three books.

Q: Is this going to be a small or large production?
A: The plan is for a big budget film.

Q: Will Rhiannon be writing the script?
A: It’s usual for companies to bring in their own script writers. I’ll be in contact with those writers once they’ve been chosen.

Q: Who will play Raven?
A: It’s much too early to answer that but I know it’s the question everyone will want to ask. I’ll let you know more as soon as I can.

Meanwhile, if you’re a Hex fan, there’s something you could do to help bring this film into reality. Since Hex wasn’t an illustrated or graphical novel there isn’t any concept art. If you’ve created Hex fan art please post it on the fanart forum so that Sweet Revenge have an idea of how fans see the Hex series. Lots of people posted art back in the day but because they used photobucket many of those links have expired – please do repost your old art or any new art you’ve done. Your artwork and imagery will help establish a vision for the film so do please get involved.

And if you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!

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