Martyn Stanley's Blog - Posts Tagged "audiobooks"

I've finally set myself a newsletter up! If you want status updates on the Deathsworn Arc or my other WIP's you can sign up here:-

http://martynstanley.com/subscribe-to...

I promise not to spam, there's an unsubscribe link in every email. All posts will be about bookie things, mainly my work. I may occasionally post about an article I read online that I think might be interesting or another authors work, but posts will be infrequent and interesting (Hopefully!)

My new title is here! It's only a short story, but I'm really proud of how it turned out. It's a sequel to my well-received 'Lambton Worm' re-telling and it takes place fifteen years later. Sir John Lambton has been boasting about his success against the worm and his boasting may lead to his downfall. The girl who saved him from his own stupidity might be the only one who can help him. However, all is not as it seems...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Return-Worm-S...

For audio book listeners I have now published 'The Lambton Worm' audio book. I found a fantastic pair of narrators, a chap who narrates and voices most of the characters and a lady who works with him to do the voices which require a female tone. The end result is stunning. I loved Kat Rose-Martin's take on 'The Last Dragon Slayer' but I wish I'd managed to get Ian Gordon and Jen to do that book too.

I have some promotional codes to giveaway for review copies of 'The Lambton Worm' Amazon audible audio book. First three people to request one in the comments get one. All I ask is an honest review of the story and the narration.

If you don't hear from me again, have a fantastic Christmas. Sorry about the long wait for 'Rise of the Archmage' I'll be posting updates in my newsletter. It will be fantastic when it's done, and I will release it as soon as I can, but at the moment it's still at least a few weeks off unfortunately.

Best wishes,

Martyn Stanley

Am I confident this time the companions WILL actually get to the Temple of the Mad God? YES!

I'm 35,000 words deep into book 5 and they companions now seem to have found a way of entering Votrex's locked Holt.

That's nearly half a book by my normal standards, so what else is going on?

Well, Lindie and Kaya's story has progressed. No spoilers, but you can be sure the events taking place in Trest will surprise.

Fox Fletcher's story has progressed. She is on the way to becoming a key character and is fast becoming one of my favourites. Life keeps kicking her in the face, but she's so spunky and feisty - she kicks back. Her story will intertwine with some of the companions more soon. At the moment, she's having a pretty crappy time, but things pick up for her.

Vashni? Well, I'm following her story too! Yes - you will finally be able to visit Eldenizar and Maerun in book 5. You may even learn a little more about Venetha and Lord SuSak and what's going on too! You DO meet SuSak's younger sister, yes, it's another female villain I'm afraid.

There's another knew character who I'm sure you'll love - Maven Stonecutter. She's a larger than life, attractive woman with a big heart and a good head on her shoulders. I'm really enjoying getting to know her. I hope you do too!

Also, I've introduced not the main villain, but the 2nd to main villain. (Trust me - Melchiot is waaaaaaaay down the list of villains!) No clues, but think about book 2, the Verkreath and Roth's truthsinging at the end of book 3!

And! Ramon Hern has made another appearance, with his dragon.

Ooh! Remember Olwyn Blackhand? She's back, but she's also changed. She's a new character now.

The plot is definitely underway in this book! Finally the story is getting going!

One key theme of this book is exploring the repercussions of the actions during the first book. Remember the Berger's daughter from Briem? Angela? She's in it, but she turns out to be perhaps not quite how you expected.

As you can tell, there's so much going on in book 5 - I'm really excited about it. It's hard to tell you about it without giving too much away. It's going to be hard work finishing this and getting it right, but it HAS to be right! I'm currently re-reading the entire series so I can make sure it flows into book 5 well. Currently on The Verkreath Horror and thoroughly enjoying it! Can't wait to get onto The Blood Queen

Sorry for the delay, I know you're all desperate to know what happens. Book 5 will come and it WILL be worth it. It'll just take a while!

:)

Martyn

For a long time I've been thinking about what to offer my email subscribers as an incentive for signing up.

You can sign up here if you're interested:-

http://martynstanley.com/subscribe-to...

For a while I've been writing a free prequel story on WattPad, really covering Korhan and Harald's actions prior to 'The Last Dragon Slayer' you can read that here, but it's looking a bit abandoned at the moment. I DID add a massive amount to it, but lost it to a computer crash and never had the heart to rewrite it:-

https://www.wattpad.com/40626548-deat...

For the subscriber incentive, I wanted to do an exclusive Deathsworn Arc prequel. At the end of book 3, I think most people think Vashni is their favourite character. For this reason, I wanted to make a prequel, covering Vashni's whereabouts and actions just prior to 'The Last Dragon Slayer'. In some ways this is a problem because I wouldn't want anyone to read the prequel prior to book 3 'The Blood Queen' because it could spoil some of the surprises...

So what do you think?

Can I send out the exclusive short prequel with a warning not to read it before book 3? Or do I send something out that means people can write to me for the exclusive once they've finished the 3rd book?

What's the best way to handle this?

Quick update for you all, seeing as we're running up to Christmas.

First of all, my sincerest apologies, but you won't be able to put 'Deathsworn Arc: The Temple of the Mad God' on your Christmas list this year. It's now around 50,000 words into the first draft. It's proving a tricky book to write, because of the now various storylines, some splitting and other's converging.

I'm trying to keep each section or chapter if appropriate to one POV. This is hard because I have at various points, Kaya and Lindie off on one adventure, the companions minus Vexis and Elden off on another adventure, while Vexis and Elden are doing something else and Fox Fletcher having her own problems in Berman's Rock. Oh and I'm following Vashni on her way to Eldenizar and beyond.

While following all these different stories I'm trying to keep time reasonably in sync. This is presenting a massive challenge and I'm having to jump forwards and backwards quite a bit. I WILL re-read this one more times than the previous books to make sure the time and place all make sense. My favorite story is Fox's at the moment. She's developing into an interesting character and I'm really enjoying exploring her development. She does go through a very rough time in this book.

I am going to have to start using time jumps in this book, obviously this is trickier when I have up to five separate stories happening at the same time!

Lengthwise, I don't know where we'll end up. I know what happens at the end, I'm just filling in the gaps at the moment. I DO know, it will be longer than any of the previous books and I expect it will be 20,000 words longer at least. However, I think it'll still be digestable, it's still made up of my mixtures of short and long chapters, as it moves from story to story.

For the cover? I kind of want to put Maven Stonecutter on the cover, but she doesn't play a massive part in this book. I also want to put Fox on the cover, she DOES play a bigger part in this story, however the climatic scene which I intend to have in the background... Well, Fox isn't present for that. I sort of want to show Brael now that he's tidied up a bit. I feel like Saul is due another cover and I really want to show Korhan's new armour off....

Oh and then this book is ALL about Votrex's home Durgheim Holt so HE should sort of be on it. What do you think? I've made a poll for you to cast your vote here:-

https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1...

Wish me luck with writing this book! I'm going to need it. However I'm sure if I can get it right, It'll be amazing!

Martyn

PS: I'm still thinking about the subscriber exclusive short story, which will be a prequel to 'The Last Dragon Slayer' following Vashni's activities! It will happen, but I want to sort out Mad God first!

*** Warning! Serious Spoilerage for people who haven't read book 4 yet here! ***

I was just scanning my reviews and I came upon a review of 'Rise of the Archmage by my good friend Nicoleta. (Even though she's one of my harshest critics.)

She had a few questions about book 4, which I never really answered. I feel I should, and now I've got nearly 70,000 words of book 5 I perhaps can - so here goes:-

1. - First of all how did the velkreath even get in the moat without being seen?! It was broad daylight! They can't have stayed in the water over night and the burning of a person is more important than guarding the city walls? Really?

A: The Verkreath entered the moat through underground tunnels and passageways. The Warren runs beneath Cormaroth and there are places where it's possible to enter the moat from the undercity of Cormaroth. I may expand on this in later books. The King's Way mentioned in book 5 is a part of this network of tunnels for example.

2. - So you made Saul cast a destructive spell so that the Orion's Hand are after him too? Way to complicate things. And really, this guy has the wizardry training of a teenager! Is he self-taught? I bet he is, if he's using his life energy as resource he will never cast spells efficiently. Sorcery 101.

A: Saul's not bad for a human wizard. He's not the best of the best for humans. He's mainly senior at the college because he's old and been there a long time. Comparing him to Brael is unfair because Brael is exceptional. If you were thinking 'martial arts' Saul would be the guy in his fifties teaching Karate at your local primary school and Brael would be Bruce Lee, or Chuck Norris?

3. - Elden Roth's curse is STUPID! There I said it! Not only is it illogical that the only way he can find out information about something he had no previous knowledge of is to sing it, but the lyrics he says are nonsensical and borderline cringe worthy (really did he have to sing about Vexis' attempt at cutting Edgar's testies too?).

A: He has no control over his lyrics. The curse makes him sing. Sometimes he sings things he doesn't like, sometimes he sings things he doesn't understand. The true devastating reality of his curse will be explored later. Imagine if you were a person of power and you were a bit evil, like - on the evil side, and you knew there was a person who had Elden's curse. You might be quite keen on capturing them!

4. - I just like it how they simply talk about killing off the paralyzed assassin in front of them - that they immediately deemed evil and sadistic, way to be quick at labeling people Martyn - and don't even break a sweat. They even suggest shipping her off to become a blind (eyes gouged out) whore. No sweat... she's not a human being or anything! We are the humans, she's just assassinating for the gold, her life is worthless. >.> They finally resort to extracting her memories and leaving her with none... but this also has consequences. The Orion's Hand know how she looks like! Here's a woman that is going to be ambushed at night, raped, tortured then killed and she'll have no FUCKING IDEA what for!

A: The threats were not real. The companions were trying to trick Olwyn into lowering her mental defences. To be fair they didn't kill her. She actually makes a return in Book 5 and ends up being something of a social climber. I will say no more, but you haven't seen the last of Olwyn.

5. - Why are they so hellbent on rescuing Kaya and Lindie! Why the hell do they go out of their way to do that. Here's an alternative example: George R.R. Martin gave subtle hints as to who Jon Snow's parents are so that his death can't be ruled out as merely just like any other death in his books. He is important to the plot, that's why his parentage has been expanded upon. In this book, what is the importance these two girls have in the novel?! Why do they NEED to be saved?!

A: They didn't really need to be saved. The companions had obviously saved them initially because they thought they COULD and the didn't want two innocent people to be burned at the stake. Once they'd saved them, they had an emotional investment in them. There'll be more of the girls later.

6. - Where's the plot? Is the plot only them going from Cormaroth to Votrex's Holt, on their way doing random rescues and good deeds? Cuz that's what they did in the first book too.

A: Apologies for this. I intended this book to take the companions to the Temple of the Mad God, but it was over-running. So I needed to wrap up the book and give it a new title. This book was really about Brael recovering his powers and Vashni returning to Eldenizar. That was the focus of the book. It also introduced Vexis and Fox, who become key characters in book 5.

7. - The narrator has a few awkward tendencies: interrupting fight scenes to randomly dump in some information I bet no one will keep in mind by the end of the paragraph; when shifting perspecting from a focus character to another the narrator sounds like that 50's narrator from Legend of Korra (And here we have Kaya and Lindie casually strolling to Briem. Back at the group's camp Saul is...) Seriously? What is he a news anchor?

A: This is something I ought to address. To be fair the fight at the end of the book IS quite long. Maybe even TOO long, but they were evenly matched so,...


8. - The characters are SO CHATTY! My god, I've never seen so many words come out of a collective group of characters with SO LITTLE relevant material to say.

A: Yep, they are a chatty bunch at times!

Random sparknotes:
1. - Vashni = next Candidate for my one punch list.

A: Vashni ends up playing a very different dynamic in the next book. She finds herself quite subdued and on the back foot for much of book 5.

2. - Was literally made Korhan the one who killed Thrax, just so he can be called Dragonslayer?

A: Korhan is doing his best! He's headstrong, too concerned about his honour and stuff and doesn't think things through. He DOES change, he has a rough ride ahead of him, but he does improve eventually. Though I do appreciate the concern - for a hero his win/loss ration on duels is pretty awful! :(

3. - Are they seriously having a talk about what's considered an acceptable procreating couple? >.>

A: Well, this is a flavour of the books! Though to be fair there's less of this in book 5.

4. - On Elden Kissing Korhan: "Ohhh you sneaky, you're gay, aren't you? Oh my... No. Wait. He's bi."

A: He is! And very promiscuous with it too!

5. - And are they SERIOUSLY TALKING ABOUT GENETICS NOW?! X(

A: Yup, blame Brael. The fantasy fiction worlds first scientist.

Well hope that clears a few things up! If not the answers might be in one of the remaining books in the series.

When I wrote book 4, I didn't really intend to cover Vexis Zaelwarsh too much. The original plan was to have her do what she does for Brael then disappear in the ether.

Vashni I really intended to leave alone until she runs into the companions later.

I didn't really plan to follow the girls on their journey north.

However to stick doggedly to my original vision would have been wrong. It would have left books 4 and 5 flat and a little soul-less. These unplanned sojourns have created some truly memorable and deep moments - at least for me! I don't know about my readers!

It IS making DSA 5 a complex book to write. The thing that's really trying to trip me up is time. I never anticipated trying to keep all the characters time in sync.

I think it's worth it though. Following Vashni in Eldenizar has been interesting and a great opportunity to introduce some new characters. I particularly like Ileandra SuSak, Korzad's evil little sister.

Following the girls to Briem has been great too, the refugee crisis from the north and the intrigue has been really interesting and I like Angela - the Berger's daughter. You didn't learn anything about her before. Now I think you'd maybe wonder if Torea might be a safer place if Vashni HADN'T saved her,

Fox, was originally going to be a minor character, but her story is great. I really like her story, for me it's a highlight of book 5.

Of course Brael, Saul, Korhan and Votrex have their tale too. They also meet a fantastic new character called Maven Stonecutter. A larger than life female quarrier who's sharp-witted and fiercely intelligent. She also has a sense of humour. You don't get to know her too well, but she WILL return in book 6 or 7, at around about the time of the 'big battle' I have planned.

Deathsworn Arc HAS a definite conclusion. Torea ends up changing in a fundamental way. There MAY, be another standalone series set in that new world, but reading DSA will not be required and it will be a separate story in it's own right. At the moment I'm leaning towards that series focusing heavily on Fox, but it's a different story and though it starts in Torea it moves east at least for a spell. Next time I'm probably going to try and have a solid plan of what's going to happen, however I think it's important to remain flexible and to be prepared to change that plan if the story demands.