Fanny Eaton, Pre Raphaelite model and inspiration for the MC in MOSTLY HARMONIOUS
I avoid writing contemporary because it’s too easy to get some detail wrong and have it take people out of the story. When I write about the past, it’s an alternative Steampunk world where I can make up whatever details I want. My strength is in writing the future, especially worlds and societies I would like to see come to fruition.
Looking at finishing projects I’ve started (as well as knowing what to discard) I’ve been thinking a lot about my Pangalactic Sojourner series. A couple of the stories are just vague outlines in my head, but others are more fleshed out.
They are contemporary.
Although it is possible to set a story vaguely somewhere-in-a-certain-decade, the theme of these make certain historical/newsworthy events important. The main character of each novel has a different sexual orientation. The faith-based romances are not written as some struggle to fit a unique sexual orientation into a Christian life; they are stories of how these five unique Christians found their happily-ever-afters. Their sexual orientation is part of that, but not the overwhelming aspect of their humanity.
When I started writing these stories, a few states had stepped up and legalized same-sex marriage. Step by step, the LGBTQ (and I know there are more letters in the acronym, but there’s a point at which it gets ridiculous) community gained more freedoms and equality. Whereas some of my characters simply and quietly live their lives and do not experience a great deal of oppression or harassment, other characters are more vocal and active in the support of their fellow LGBTQ persons. The many events, big and small, that have marked the last five or ten years do affect my characters, and I want to do justice to the details.
I intend to choose a period of a few years for these stories to take place. If I choose a time more than, say, five years ago, I will be able to look back and get a fairly clear view of the changes in LGBTQ rights. However this also makes a story feel out-of-date, stuck between present day and history. If I set the stories in a very recent year, I can’t see the big picture as clearly because I’m living it. We’ve made forward steps and backwards leaps. And in the end, if it takes several years before the stories are published, it might still feel dated.
The series is currently on the shelf, even though it is on my mind. I have other projects to finish first. When I do return to it, I need to outline the five stories and understand how they intertwine as well as how the real-life timeline affects them.
And I might choose 2016, because Pokemon Go is…strangely…relevant to one particular plot.
AmyBeth Inverness 
The Murders of Luna
Looking so very professional to speak to my daughter’s 3rd grade class about writing! The next day these blossoms were coated with wet sticky snow.
Recently there has been a fun meme going around about inserting “And then the murders began,” as the second line in your favorite book. For example:
Not all the examples have it being exactly the second sentence; for some it fits better being elsewhere in the opening.
And then I realized April Fools Day was only a few days away.
A few months ago I not only stopped releasing a short story in The Cities of Luna every month, I stopped doing any promo. No huge surprise… my sales numbers didn’t change. Just a few sales each month.
I saw an opportunity for a publicity stunt that would cost me several hours of work, but no actual money. (I did end up spending $8 to boost a post on facebook.) I had been meaning to go back through all 20 stories in the series to make sure their formatting is identical, and to add a list of the stories to the back of each. After doing this, I went through and inserted “And then the murders began” somewhere in the opening of each story, then I uploaded THAT version to Smashwords. (I left Amazon alone.)
I did this on March 31, then throughout the day on April first I shared my own memes, one for each story. Something did work… I got a lot of interaction, mostly with friends asking “WTF?”
Not obvious from the excerpt, but Pico is only four years old. And no, this isn’t some horror story about a possessed child on a bloody rampage! It’s about COOKIES damnit! It’s a CUTE story about a little girl and her grandmother! #AndThenTheMurdersBegan
.
I wasn’t pinning my hopes and dreams on this going viral and making my sales skyrocket, but I know that you can never tell exactly what folks will latch onto, so it was worth a try.
No, my sales did not skyrocket. But a lot of people who only know me casually got a much better idea of the fact that I am a writer lol! I’m re-uploading the up-to-date and murderless versions now.
And who knows? Maybe years from now someone will say “Aren’t you AmyBeth Inverness? I remember when you did that murder-thing with all your books…”
When I examine my career as it is, I’m not at a loss. I have some very clear things I need to do, such as revamping my website so it is more professional. In particular, I need to redo my published works page so the more recent items are at the top. I need to finish something besides COL and do something with it. I’m not floundering…I just need to make things happen while still juggling all the challenges of family life.
So… share!
What would YOUR story be like if you added “And then the murders began…” to the beginning?