E-Shorts: Why Read and Write Them?

Last month, my co-author Meagan Spooner and I released a free short story set in the same world as our Starbound trilogy. Titled This Night So Dark, it's designed to be read before or after These Broken Stars.

We had heaps of fun writing and releasing it, and the response from fans has been amazing! We've been asked lots of questions about it, so today I'm going to talk about the best reasons to release a free story like this, and why we did it.

It's a chance to give something back to the fans.

This is, above anything else, the best reason to write and release a story for free. We've been bowled over by the response to These Broken Stars -- from the emails to the letters, the awesome fan art (hoooow do you guys do that stuff?) to the recipes! Quite simply, we wanted to thank our readers for being amazing, and a free story felt like the best way to do it.

You can tell a story that doesn't fit into the big picture.

At the start of These Broken Stars, you learn two things about Tarver very quickly. First, he's considered a 'war hero'. Second, he doesn't want to talk about how he earned those medals. Meg and I always knew the story behind his fame, but there wasn't any place in the novel to tell it. It would have been a distraction from the main storyline. Releasing it as a short story gave us the chance to share it in a different forum, so those who have been wondering (and judging by the emails, you guys really wanted to know!) can find out the truth about Tarver.

It's a chance to meet new readers.

Picking up a whole novel is an investment in terms of time and money -- a short story is a way for an author and reader to get to know each other with less commitment. Think of it as catching up for a coffee, instead of launching into a dinner-and-a-movie date straight away. Short stories and novellas are a great way to check out the writing and world of a new author, to see if you want to jump into the series. We hope This Night So Dark will be a chance for new readers to check out the series, and perhaps join in the fun.

It helps with the wait!

Authors are readers too, and we hate waiting for the next book in our favourite series as much as you guys do! We can't waaaait to share This Shattered World with you all, next month. In the meantime, short stories are a great way to bridge the gap, help with the agony of waiting for the next instalment, and they're also a great way to ease you back into a world before you pick up the next book.

What about you guys? Do you read e-shorts and e-novellas? I'd love to hear your favourites!

Space: The Final Frontier

Okay, so that sounds a little Star Trekky, I know. I am a big fan of Star Trek, especially the TV series, The Next Generation. (Most of the others, you know, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and/or Enterprise, I never did get as into.)

Maybe it was Captain Picard that really spoke to me, or how you can watch any episode in any order and understand the story, but I enjoyed Star Trek: The Next Generation. I know the graphics, and technologies, and special effects aren't as grandiose as today's standards (and the films coming out now!), but it was this series that first sparked my fascination with space travel.

Now, I have yet to pen a space travel novel, but I absolutely love novels set in space. There's something equally exciting and perplexing about being trapped in space. Yes, I view space as a place where I'd be trapped. There's no air out there!

Films like Gravity make me glad I'm on earth, watching as someone else endures the brutalities of extreme temperature and lack of oxygen. I've also enjoyed novels like Across the Universe by Beth Revis, These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan, and others.

It seems as though novels set in space are a bit of a trend right now, a "hot thing." I really do think it's one of the final frontiers, where the possibilities of new worlds, new species, new ideas, is endless. Maybe that's what draws authors and readers to write and read novels set in space.

How do you feel about space? Novels set in space? Space travel? 

Interview with the authors of THESE BROKEN STARS

I'm so excited to have you meet Meagan Spooner and Amie Kaufman via this interview today. It's rare when authors collaborate on a YA book, but these two do it from across the universe (yes, League joke). I think you'll find their process as fascinating as I do. - Lissa



         Meagan Spooner                                                                                           Amie Kaufman


Whose idea was it to write as a team and who came up with the idea?

We'd been writing together, a series of collaborative story-telling games, for years before it ever occurred to us to write a novel together. The idea for THESE BROKEN STARS came when we were ready to start one such new game, and Amie wanted to make the setting a shipwreck, and Meg wanted to make the setting space. We came up with the idea of a shipwreck in space and intended to write a bunch of little vignettes to entertain each other, all about the little groups of survivors. But we got completely carried away by the very first such group we made: Lilac and Tarver. We never got to writing any other survivors, and ended up playing with the characters for over a year before we started to wonder if maybe other people might have fun reading about them too.

What is your writing process together?

We often play out conversations and events together via instant messenger long before we start drafting the book, just to make sure the characters are well-established, and we have a vague idea of the events to come. Once we feel we've got a good handle on our characters, we then alternate writing chapters; Amie writes the boys, and Meg writes the girls. In revision, however, all bets are off, and we both rewrite stuff from each other's chapters. There are actually significant chunks of THESE BROKEN STARS where we honestly can't remember who wrote what.

Is it faster or slower writing as a team?

It's usually faster to write together, because we can literally work around the clock--due to the time zone difference, Amie's going to sleep in Australia around the time Meg's waking up in America. We usually do a little hand-off, recapping what we did and where we're up to, and then the other one takes over. That said, it's much slower to revise as a team. With revision we're much more careful to discuss everything, and make sure we're not making unwanted changes. That requires us to find more time to be online at the same time, and a LOT more working around the time difference, so it often requires more time than it would if there was only one person making decisions.

Any advice to writers considering writing as teams?

Communicate! The number one thing we see that tears collaborations apart is a lack of communication ahead of time. You have to make sure your goals are the same (do you want to get published? are you just writing for fun?). You have to make sure your expectations are out in the open (how fast do you expect your partner to work? how much of the book does each person write?). You have to make sure you agree on where the story is going--and if you don't agree, you have to know exactly how to work out that dispute. We've known each other for so long that we already had that communication in place, but it can be frustrating to work with someone whose expectations don't match your own.

Anything else you'd like to tell the League readers?

Thanks so much for reading, guys! If you want to know more about THESE BROKEN STARS, we put up all our news, along with contests and sneak peeks of upcoming projects, on our newsletter. You can sign up for that here. You can also find Amie and Meg on Twitter at @amiekaufman and @meaganspooner. And finally, if you've got questions, we're both on Tumblr: meaganspooner.tumblr.com + amiekaufman.tumblr.com. Isn't social media awesome? Authors and readers, a click away from each other.

 

 

 

 

Launching THESE BROKEN STARS by Leaguers Meagan Spooner and Amie Kaufman!

Okay, so it's that time again: Launch Time!

THESE BROKEN STARS by Meagan Spooner and Amie Kaufman releases in the US tomorrow, December 10. You MUST pre-order this book right now, because you're going to LOVE IT.

I happened to get an early copy of the book on NetGalley. I started reading it at the gym (because that's where I get in all my reading time), but it became very apparent very soon that I was going to need to carve out some additional reading time. Because 45 minutes on the treadmill 3 times a week wasn't going to cut it for this book.

So I stayed up late reading. And went to work bleary-eyed, and then stayed up late again. Then I may or may not have sent this email to Meg and Amie: "I just finished THESE BROKEN STARS and I think it's my favorite book I've read this year! It is SO FANTASTIC!! You did such a great job, and I can't wait until it's released into the wild!

Just wanted you to know. :)"

And I think that's still true, even though I've read a few more books now. It really IS a fantastic book, and my favorite read of 2013.

Let's learn more about it, in case you haven't heard of it.

Isn't this a beautiful cover?

About THESE BROKEN STARS: It's a night like any other on board the Icarus. Then, catastrophe strikes: the massive luxury spaceliner is yanked out of hyperspace and plummets into the nearest planet. Lilac LaRoux and Tarver Merendsen survive. And they seem to be alone.

Lilac is the daughter of the richest man in the universe. Tarver comes from nothing, a young war hero who learned long ago that girls like Lilac are more trouble than they're worth. But with only each other to rely on, Lilac and Tarver must work together, making a tortuous journey across the eerie, deserted terrain to seek help.

Then, against all odds, Lilac and Tarver find a strange blessing in the tragedy that has thrown them into each other's arms. Without the hope of a future together in their own world, they begin to wonder-would they be better off staying here forever?

Everything changes when they uncover the truth behind the chilling whispers that haunt their every step. Lilac and Tarver may find a way off this planet. But they won't be the same people who landed on it.

I found Lilac and Tarver to be well-developed and fully imagined characters. Lilac especially intrigued me. She's a rich girl, hardly having to do anything but look pretty. But she has a past, and in the book, she finds her spine. It is an amazing journey to watch her go through some of the things that happen on the planet.

Tarver is equally likeable, with an equally interesting past. Since he's military, he takes the lead on the planet, but my favorite scene is when Lilac has to take care of him. It shows them both in a new light, and I really loved their relationship.

But lest you think the whole book is simply a romance, let me assure you that it's not. There were several twists and turns in the book that kept me up late (two nights in a row!) frantically trying to guess what was going to happen next. I NEEDED to know.

I had to find out what those lights were (no spoilers!). And what was with that canteen. And why all the trees were different here. There's an element of the supernatural at play, and I love that sort of genre mashing: science fiction with paranormal with romance. Sign me up!

I hope you'll get THESE BROKEN STARS this week. Heck, tomorrow--on release day! Here's where you can get it:

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Kobo
• iTunes
• Indiebound
• Book Depository
• Or your local bookstore!

You can join Amie and Meg's newsletter, and find out way more about THESE BROKEN STARS here. You can also see their launch day festivities here.

Congrats Meg and Amie!

5 Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner

Hi, Leaguers! We're so excited to be new contributors! Allow us to introduce ourselves...

1.       We met online, through a fantastic creative writing community! It was one of those rare clicks you sometimes find in life – we found we could seamlessly collaborate. The future was right there in front of us, but we didn’t know it yet!

2.       We’ve lived together for nearly two years over two separate occasions – though Meg’s American, she’s done two stints in Australia living with Amie and her husband. If you can negotiate who does the dishes, you can definitely co-author a novel.

3.       We have road-tripped around the US and America. Our favourite trip might just be the time we scored the high rollers’ suite in a major Vegas casino.

4.       Amie’s a dog person, Meg’s a cat person. Meg fell for Amie’s dog while she was living in Australia, and he still loves to hear her voice on Skype. Amie continues her attempts to seduce Meg’s cat, and lives in hope of one day touching him without getting bitten. He’s kind of a one-girl cat.

5.       If we were shipwrecked, we would grab chocolate, cheese, bacon and our boxed set of Firefly as the ship went down.

And here’s one thing almost certainly did know about us, as we kind of took over the internet yesterday! Our debut novel, These Broken Stars, has a brand new cover! We're just a little bit excited about that! We'd love you guys to check it out, and we'll have our fingers crossed you win one of the six ARCs up for grabs!