First Book Friday: Kristen Britain

[jimhines]

Welcome to First Day Friday! Click for submission guidelines and an index of previous authors.

Kristen Britain (LJ, Facebook) is a New York Times bestseller. Her latest book Blackveil came out in February of this year. The series even has its own wiki, which is pretty darn nifty. Kristen is another DAW author, meaning I suspect it pained her to

Comments

[snapes_angel]

The story is the major thing, yes (and good work, by the way!).

Writing short stories is good practice, even if longer ones are your venue of choice. Sometimes you need to write back stories for your characters, and short stories may work better for those scenarios then novels.

[jimhines]

Short stories are good practice for writing short stories. But the best practice for writing novels is, in my opinion, to write novels.

I spent years doing short stories because I thought that was what you were "supposed" to do. I did learn some things, but it wasn't until I started writing books that I began learning the rest of the skills I needed to write *good* books, if that makes sense?

I wonder how much sooner I would have sold my first book if I had started earlier.

[snapes_angel]

Short stories are good, when you have a simple (one) thing to tell. It's not easy for me to tell a short one (as evidenced by The Behemoth, for which I'm still working out the convoluted subplots and main plots). If you have one incident from your novel's protagonist, or even the antagonist, where you're trying to work uot the details and that particular back story (and mind, that's one singular incident), then a short story is the best format for a back story.

But yes, you really need to write books in order to learn...how to write books.

[kristenbritain]

Heh, my single incidents seem to explode, but I've managed to write a few shorts for anthologies...though they were on the longer end of the word count.

[the_gneech]

Green Rider was a very enjoyable book. The followups are sitting on my "to read" shelf, alas!

[kristenbritain]

Yay! I hope you enjoy.

[the_gneech]

Well hello there! Consider yourself followed. :)

BTW, I have a podcast called Short Story Geeks -- if you're up for it, I'd love to interview for it sometime. What short story anthologies are you in? We'll happily give you some plugging. :)

-The Gneech

[kristenbritain]

Thanks! Here's a link to my short stories listed on my website: http://www.kristenbritain.com/shortstories/Justine%20and%20the%20Mountie.html Three were for DAW anthologies, and one for a Roc anthology. Interestingly, the Roc one originated with my then German publisher, then was picked up in the US.

[celtic_catgirl]

Well Kristen tells really great stories. Blackveil is sitting on my shelf awaiting a free weekend because I know I won't be able to put it down.

I remember in 2001 I was at a friends house for our weekly Role-playing game and he came out as I was getting ready to leave and shoved a book into my hands. Hardcover, Black binding, no dust jacket. I tried to say I already had too much to read, maybe later, but he was insistent. So I put it in my back pack where it rode in between my text books for a couple weeks and one day I pulled it out when I was waiting for a ride home. That book was Green Rider, and that is how I learned never to say no when a friend shoves a book in my hands.

[kristenbritain]

You have a good friend. :-)

[harper_knight]

Yeah, I agree.. when someone tells me 'read this book, read it now' I will gladly insert it at the top of my to-read pile.

[deborahjross]

Great story! I'm always intrigued by how many ways there are to publication. Some people work much better at one story length than another. It sounds like Kristen is a natural novelist and was wise enough to "follow her passion" instead of trying to fit herself into a conventional-wisdom model. (She's in excellent company! I can think of a dozen writers, including Jennifer Roberson, Katharine Kerr, Barbara Hambly and Kate Elliott, whose strong preference is novel-length -- although all have written shorts upon occasion.)

I don't get to vote on what size idea packet the Idea Fairy leaves under my pillow, but with experience, I've gotten better at weighing them -- hmm, this feels like it needs about 5K, this one's a short-short...omg, this has got to be a trilogy! The story dictates its own, best length.

[kristenbritain]

Yes, I like that. Stories can get awfully bossy. I find the idea that the writer is in control not necessarily to be true....

[miintikwa]

I am a huge fan of Kristen's work! I have the first three in paperback, and have read and reread them!

And thank you-- and she!-- for saying that if you love writing novels, write novels. Because I have tried writing short stories, and it's just... It's not where my heart lies. I'll get back to work on my novel, now, and be happier for it!

[jimhines]

I was talking to a fairly big-name author years ago, when I was editing Heroes in Training. I asked him if he'd be interested, and he looked at me and said "I can't write short stories for shit."

Given how successful he's been with novel-length fiction, I found this comforting :-) I eventually learned to do both, but my passion definitely lies with novels.

[kristenbritain]

Guess you gotta do what you love! Since those days, I've found the rare short a refreshing change of brain use.

[miintikwa]

I'm going to start of by giving Kristen a huge hug ^_^ I'll then go on to say the ending of Blackveil was both cruel and brillant...not only do you enjoy torturing your characters, but your readers too!

Well, anyways.

Short stories. Meh. I never could write 'em. I'd rather ramble on and on and dish out as much word count as I possibly can. More characters! Bring on the subplots!

And hopefully, one day, I'll be tallented enough *psh* And lucky enough to get published. It'd be nice. Considering writing is one of the few things in life I'm good at...sort of.

See? I ramble. I'm gonna go now...