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Alessandra Clarke

~ Author of The Rider's Revenge Trilogy

Alessandra Clarke

Monthly Archives: August 2015

Why Are So Many Characters In Books Orphans?

18 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by Alessandra Clarke in Reading Related

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loss as character motivation, most people wouldn't want to do what main characters have to, reading, writing

I look back at the books I’ve read over the years and so many of the characters are orphans.  Or they’ve lost a spouse or sibling or child or best friend or everyone they ever loved.  (Looking at you GRRM.)

It never bothered me too much.  (Except for how NCIS seems to kill off a strong secondary female character every time they need a little extra juice in their story line.)  But it was something I noticed.

When I started writing, I really had to think about this.  Because when you first start writing you want to be unique and different and not do the same thing a hundred people before you have done.

But, see, here’s the deal.  Loss equals change.  Especially traumatic loss.  It shakes us out of our every day and forces us onto new paths we wouldn’t have taken otherwise.

And those orphans?  Well, there aren’t any parents around to protect them or save them.  They have to face challenges on their own because they have no other choice.  There also aren’t ties to bind them to home so they can run away at a moment’s notice.

Walk up to a lonely, isolated orphan and say, “Want to get away from here and save the world and be the hero and be adored by everyone?” chances are the answer will be yes.

Walk up to a child who is well-loved and well-protected with a strong family and strong community around them and ask the same question and they’ll either want to ask their parents’ permission (who will say no) or they’ll pass.  Because why risk everything they have on some potentially catastrophic adventure?  And when it does go bad (as things must in all good stories), why not just turn around and go back home?

The best characters, the ones who persevere and push through challenge after challenge, are the ones who have nothing to go back to or are so driven by their loss that they can’t imagine stopping before the end.

So, that’s why I think so many main characters are orphans.

My Lifelong Love Affair With Fantasy Novels

14 Friday Aug 2015

Posted by Alessandra Clarke in Reading Related

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fantasy, I love reading, some of my favorite authors, what inspires me

I was a reader of fantasy long before I was a writer of it. Oh, sure, I have a notebook in a drawer somewhere where ten-year-old me started a story about a queen giving birth to a prince on a stormy night, but really growing up for me it was all about reading books not writing them.

My earliest reading memory is of A Wrinkle in Time.  If you asked me what the plot was, who the characters were, or anything else, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.  I just know that A Wrinkle in Time is the first book I actually remember reading and loving.  I found it at the little small town library.  (Can you believe a town of 100 people actually had a library at all?  Crazy, but it did.)

Next I remember the summer I spent reading all the Oz books.  It was the summer before 4th grade and once a week my mom would take us to the book store and I’d get to buy the next Oz book.  I still have them somewhere.  Loved them.  And that memory of waiting with anticipation to go and get the next one stays with me.  (That and my collecting fuzzy stickers that summer.  The things we spend money on…Better than that period where my friends and I would create eraser dust and collect it.)

After that I found David Eddings, again at the local library.  I read his entire Belgariad series in a weekend.  (Why I was given a “Shhh, I’m reading” bookmark for Christmas that year, I suspect.)

And then I discovered the Science Fiction Book Club.  Talk about heaven!  I ordered so many books from them it was ridiculous.  And found writers I probably never would have otherwise.  Like Mercedes Lackey and Anne McCaffrey and Stephen R. Donaldson.

That didn’t keep me away from real book stores of course.  I spent my sixth grade year reading the collected works of H.G. Wells from this beautiful leather-bound book we bought at the bookstore for some insanely cheap price like $10.

I kept my love of books and reading through high school.  I still remember with fondness how my friend’s mom bought me three of Isaac Asimov’s robot books when she found out I hadn’t heard of him yet.  (I have less fondness for her opinions of how I held a fork and my lack of appreciation for opera.)

And I kept that love of books in college.  I had the joy of working at a bookstore for two years and we could borrow books to read.  Oh, how fun! To be a broke college student but still be able to read whatever you wanted to?

I remember I read something like five books during finals week one year.  I’d make myself a deal, study for half an hour, you can read for fifteen.  Of course, fifteen was never enough.

One of my co-workers there turned me on to Melanie Rawn. That’s also where I read one of the Game of Thrones books for the first time as a free ARC.

Even after college books were there for me.  Seven or eight years ago a co-worker turned me on to China Mieville’s works.  I loved how crazy imaginative he was.

There are so many good books out there.  Old and new.  Just this year I discovered the works of Robin Hobb for the first time.

So many great authors with so many great twists on reality.  I could read forever and still have more great books to read.

Always, year after year, fantasy writing has nourished and sustained me.  It’s let me know that anything is possible and helped me escape those times when real-life was maybe just a little too painful.

Reading is one of the few pleasures that lets me completely turn off my brain and relax for just a little while.  Without it I’m not sure I’d be as relatively sane and stable as I am.  (A fact some might argue with, especially those who know me best.)

Oh, sure.  There were other books in other genres.  As a reader how could I not branch out and try new books and new experiences?  But fantasy…fantasy is where the heart and soul of it is for me.

Hello world!

13 Thursday Aug 2015

Posted by Alessandra Clarke in Rider's Revenge

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debut novel, fantasy novels, feminist fantasy, self-publishing, writing

Well, here we go!  I have to say this is probably one of the scariest things I’ve ever done in my life.

What is that you might ask?

I’m going to publish my novel, Rider’s Revenge, on October 1st.

It’s not the first thing I’ve ever published, but it’s the first time I’ve decided to go “all-in” on something and really put it all out there.  I’ve found someone to do the cover, it’s been reviewed too many times to count, and in six weeks’ time, I’ll publish it and hope that a bunch of people I don’t know actually want to read it and give me a chance to challenge and entertain them.

There’s so much to worry about it’s not even funny.

Will the cover come out well?  (I hope so.  The cover artist I found is even doing a photo shoot for it to get it just right!)

Will people like my writing?  (It’s epic fantasy but written in a more fast-paced YA sort of way.  Personally, I find I like shorter paragraphs and scenes these days, but will others?)

Will it be too feminist?  (I like to think it’s a great coming of age adventure story with a kick-ass heroine, but the main character is a strong woman who has some opinions about the crap place she finds herself and how women are treated there.  I hope I didn’t overdo it, but I won’t know until I see those reviews come in.)

Will the people who might like it even see it to know it’s out there?  (So many books are published these days, it’s easy to just sink into nothingness even if you do have a good story to tell.)

AH!  Scary times.  But exciting, too.

Fingers crossed it goes well and this is just the first of many posts in my publishing career.

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Publication Day!October 1, 2015
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