Sunday 5 October 2014

review: 4 * Sorrow, by John Lawson.


This one is tagged as adult but I think a lot of YA readers might like it too.

Faina, ward - or hostage - to a noble house - dances dreamily through the days, and fails to fit into her current life.

Sorrow, the almost invisible assassin, kills but then weeps black tears over the corpses.

Lord Ash, right hand of the king, adviser, investigator and if need be also assassin, comes to solve a spate of recent noble killings, a breath of very cold air among the wealthy and well born.

This is a story that's going to stick in my mind, so I'm passing it along to yours. The plot is suitably twisted, the ending not perhaps what you will expect, and the characters strong and fairly unique. And the writing, or the overall impression, was... haunting.
Try it and see if you agree?

Sorrow, from Dragonwell Publishing, came out in September. 

Late again.

Ouch, has it really been that long since I was here last?

What can I say, real life got interesting. I never planned to live online. Though it sometimes feels like it. The Orbit groups are rearranging a bit, which means lots of emails flying hither and thither for the last week or so. Happily I think we're almost done there, and hopefully everyone will eventually be happy in their new nest.

Between times, there seem to be a lot of emails anyway, and a few facebook messages, half of which I confess I read but probably don't comment on - who needs my comment anyway.

Between these there were scripts to crit for Orbit, which I'm almost there on, and now more scripts for the upcoming NorthwriteSF meetup, including making sure my own piece for that was as decent as I could make it before they tear it apart again for me.

Then I's also decided to put a rough draft into printable form, which meant facing up to 300-plus pages of very rough scribble and trying to translate it all into neat typescript. I am, at this point, past the halfway mark, which is maybe why I'm allowing myself to look around and see what I haven't done.
Setting a story on the page at this point in its life is daunting, if only because that also means I know my next task will be to revise it, but at least I know now how it all ends which makes more sense of the revisions. Maybe for some of you that isn't a problem; maybe you plot before you write? If so I envy you; I would if I could, but when I attempt it the story slithers away and dies on me. For me, apparently, writing is all about finding out what happens next. If I already know, I can't write it. Strange? Yes. Part of the fun? That too.

So I'm officially a 'pantster' - I write by the seat of. If I hadn't been sure already Jaine Fenn confirmed it during her recent writing challenge. [If you come across one on offer in the future, sign up at once!] Faced with the two options, I managed to shift both of them into my method, even though they weren't to start with. Hey ho.

If you are going to Bristolcon in a couple of weeks, maybe you'll fancy my  writing challenge. 45 minutes of it available for a small group. Or one of the panels I'm sitting in on. Feel free to come and say hello anyway. That's part of the fun too.