Exploring Cosimo’s World: A Closer Look at the Climax

Here’s another excerpt from Cosimo’s story.

The lab building was chained shut, but father had provided keys and a letter from the current lien holder allowing me to inspect it for possible purchase. Twelve gave a shudder as she read the name on the placard beside the door while I removed the lock and unwrapped the chain from the door handles. A second key unlocked the door.

“Are you alright, Twelve?” I asked as I slipped the lock from the chain into my pocket. 

She was wearing a warm work coat, a dark stocking cap, loose gray pants and a pair of hastily acquired work boots. I was dressed as a low or possibly hard-working high-guilder, ready to inspect a disused property.

“Yes, master. This slave just remembered how vile a man she was married to previously.” 

Her former family name was on the building. 

“Well, that is behind you now. While he is the one that caused your current placement, I for one am glad to have met you. You are a remarkable woman.” 

She snorted as we stepped inside. “You are the remarkable one, master. This slave was an arrogant, self-entitled prima donna. You are a protector of the empire, even if no one knows of it. This slave is pleased that she can be of service to the empire and you, despite what her former husband plotted.”

I thought to speak more but demurred. “Let’s see what there is left of Dr. Kenyon’s office here,” I said.

We took the stairs upward, unsure which floor the good doctor had her offices on. I suspected it would be closer to the top, fourth floor, but wanted to look carefully, in case anyone was keeping an eye on us. I needed to appear to be genuinely interested in the property, not just looking for scattered clues.

This except is from the concluding chapters of the book when the plot is in full-tilt and building to the climax of the story. I hope you enjoy and encourage you to check out Cosimo: A Families of the Empire Story on Amazon.

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Catch Editing Mistakes Easily with Speechify

Editing can be a tedious process. Recently, I’ve been using Speechify.com to read sections of the work I’m editing to help catch mis-cues in the narrative. It’s a good tool that I felt others might appreciate. It has much better voices and smoother pacing for reading works aloud. 

I’ve been listening to it read, while following along in my word processor, so when I hear something ‘out of tune’, I can easily edit it. One I’m embarrassed to admit, is dropping a ‘g’ in a couple of words. Specifically ‘bringing’. Since ‘brining’ is a word, it is not caught by spell check and for whatever reason, does not show up in grammar checks either. However, it jumps out loudly when read aloud.

I’m in the process of re-editing much of my work using this approach now, so thought I’d mention it here.

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Cosimo and Samantha: A Dance of Wits and Charm

This is an excerpt from Cosimo’s story. This scene is from about one third of the way through Cosimo’s tale and shows Cosimo meeting Samantha for the second time. Enjoy.

“You look as bored as I feel,” a warm, soft voice said next to me. I glanced, appreciating her sharp profile in the dim light of the balcony, and smiled. 

“I’m just taking a break from being a social butterfly,” I said. “This is my sixth gala in ten days, and I feel like I’ve talked my throat raw.”

“But you’ve only shaken my hand and said what a pleasure it was to meet me,” she teased.

“That was eight days ago. I was trying to choose my follow-up line, but knew I’d be tongue-tied if I approached.”

She laughed. It was a throaty chuckle more than a solid guffaw, but it suited her. “You are charming despite being so shy,” she teased back. “Since I approached you, I guess you don’t have to be tongue-tied now.”

“Miss Dennison, it’s a pleasure to see you again. I’d ask if you are enjoying yourself, but I suspect you are bored with the high season here tonight.”

“Why Cosimo, how could you even hint at such a thing? Beatrice’s mother simply cannot throw a boring gala. That is not allowed. As one of the leading families in the Empire, I’m certain it is the height of entertainment. It must be your simple mind that can’t fathom such lofty performances.” She motioned to the pantomime troupe monopolizing the dance floor below us. 

They looked like mimes playing charades with stiffly choreographed movements within their own group. I knew enough ‘modern’ performance art to know that it was the height of fashion, but I could not take the performance seriously. The individuals in the troupe were fit and fluid, moving easily within their play, but the whole lacked any emotional connection for me. I said as much.

“Gods, yes,” Samantha Dennison agreed. “I’d rather see the ballet or even a good cabaret scene than this excrement,” she opined. 

I nodded.

She gave me a sideways look. “That was a perfect opening for you to invite me to see one or the other next week,” she said.

I turned to face her. She was a small woman, but perfectly proportioned and attractive. Her head came to just above my shoulder, but her posture and carriage made her seem to be my match. Her self-confidence belied her size. She had dark hair with lighter highlights styled into a delightful cascade of loose curls gathered over one shoulder. Her high cheekbones and rounded nose were a perfect canvas for her full red lips and warm light eyes. She was very attractive, witty, and smart. Of course, she was an aristocrat and all that entailed, which would make my grandmother happy. Her family interests were mostly in the south of the continent, with vast agricultural holdings. Her eldest brother was being groomed to be a senator while her older sisters were being married to other aristocratic and high guilder lines. I wondered if she had chosen me or been launched my direction, given the nature of the social season here in Cardino. 

“If only the ballet was performing here next week, I’d be honored to ask to escort you. Alas,” I said dramatically, “there is no performance scheduled.”

Her eyes crinkled as she smiled. “I’ve heard there is to be a dancing exhibition at the club next week. Perhaps that would suit us better than a long ballet.”

I laughed. “My apologies, madame, but I work at that club and can think of better places to spend my off time, no matter how nice the atmosphere or company might be.”

She frowned. I was sorry to hurt her feelings so rushed ahead. “However, I happen to know of a private performance that troupe will have before their scheduled show, if you would care to watch with myself and my grandmother.”

She smiled. “I think I would enjoy that,” she said. “When and where is this private performance?” 

“It’s in a private residence, near the club. We can have an early dinner or late lunch afterwards if that suits you.”

She nodded. “My aunt will be wanting to accompany me,” she said as she glanced down to the main floor and spotted her chaperone who had been escorting her to all the balls this season. “Will that be a problem?” 

I shook my head. “Not at all. I’ll send you a card to confirm the details.”

She smiled and raised her hand for me to hold and raise to my lips for the briefest of kisses. 

“I look forward to seeing you again, Cosimo.”

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Finn and Elara: Exploring Boundaries in a New Realm

Editing, Editing, Editing…when do I get back to writing?

I am happy to say I’ve finished my editing and re-write of sections of A New Past to create a less explicit version of the story. I’m not getting the final formatting sorted out and posted on Amazon for publishing. 

It’s been a lot of work to re-work sections of the novels to make them suitable for a younger readership. Just to be clear, they are not into the YA category, quite, but they are also safely in the PG-13 or R category for US readers. 

Meanwhile, I’ve been kicking around ideas and snippets for other work, both explicit and mainstream. I have one mainstream story that I think will be my next focus before jumping back to writing a sequel to Technomancer. I’m capturing ideas about that sequel as I work on this other project. To keep readers here interested, here is a short excerpt of the draft opening to the next chapter in FInn and Elara’s tale.

Seeing the end of a world was sobering.

Finn looked out from the ship sailing steadily toward the point the sun had risen from, but knew they would never reach the point. The ship would reach A point, but they would get there through some quantum, or magical, mechanism which would reposition them elsewhere on the surrounding sea. 

For months, he had searched to unravel the mysteries of the world he now lived in with Elara. For months, he had struggled with the strange topology of this world. Now, he had proof with his own eyes that it was not a world. Realm was an apt descriptor. With his new goddess-given sight, he could see the fluctuations that defined the end of the world, spreading like a fountain from to flatten against an unseen barrier and bend back toward the land. 

It was literally the boundary, edge, or border of this world. 

What lay beyond it was unknowable. All the magical and quantum energy from this realm was reflected by that impenetrable barrier. It was the end.

“What do you see?” Elara asked as she moved to stand beside him at the railing of the small sailing ship they had hired.

“The end of the world,” Finn muttered. 

She looked at him in alarm.

“What do you mean?”

“The edge, the boundary that marks the limit of our travels.”

She looked ahead. “I don’t see any barrier.”

“It isn’t meant to be seen, but it is there. I can see the flow of magic, the quanta that make magic, bend back toward us. Nothing of this world or mine will penetrate that to see what lies beyond.”

Elara slipped her arm into his, hugging him as she liked to do when they were alone together. “Is that so bad?”

Finn shook his head. 

“It’s not bad, exactly, but it’s not good. It means I need to shift my thinking. Realm is a good description for this place called the Enchanted Forest. I suspect it fits the other Realms you know of as well.”

“And?” Her Lunar intution let her know there was more.

“And, that means a large group of my theories and ideas for being able to travel back to my home will be fruitless.”

“So you’ll consider other ideas. You’re a brilliant man, Finn. Malachi was able to send me to your world, and bring both of us back here, so there must be a way to accomplish your own return. Don’t give up so easily.”

Finn chuckled. “Since when did you turn into a cheerleader?”

Technomancer is available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited now.

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Another Past: Book One

If you are interested in reading a less explicit version of A New Past, you can now find the first book in the series, re-edited and toned down, on Amazon.

Book One is available for Kindle and Kindle Unlimited. It will be out in paperback and hardback later this moth. Books Two and Three will be published in the next 4-6 weeks as well.

Revising Romance: Enhancing Character Arcs in A New Past

Funny how focus shifts. I began re-working A New Past to make a non-explicit versions of the story as a means to find some creativity for my other work. It has quickly become my primary focus for writing. I’m happy to say Book One is complete, and will be published under a different author name via Amazon on April first — No fooling 🙂

I’m half-way through books two and three, and no, that does not mean I’ve completed either of them yet. I’ve been working them in parallel, revisiting all of the explicit scenes to edit them down while fixing other minor errors in the original manuscript. 

One issue I’ve faced is the emotional connections between characters that has been strongly demonstrated through their physical love. Without giving too much away, let’s look at one example.

In Book Two, Paul and Jeryl begin a polygamous relationship with another character. If I remove that romance it has big implications later in Book Two as well as in Book Three. Cutting the relationship — which begins as a physical exploration of their own relationship reaching all the way back to Book One — changes significant story arcs.

That’s why it’s taking some time to re-write.

I have to soften the physical expressions of their new relationship, but keep the emotional attachments they both form, so the character arc can continue across multiple books. It’s a challenge, but one I accept. 

Look for updates soon on when all three books will be up on Amazon.

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Help Me Choose a New Cover

I plan on removing Technomancer from my Charlie Foxtrot pen name. As part of this effort, I’m updating the cover for the ebook and paperback as well.

If you’re interested in lending a hand, help me choose a new cover. No registration, tracking, or shady stuff happening, just a simple poll. You’ll also be “in the know” on who is behind my Charlie Foxtrot pseudonym.

Oxford Comma vs. No Oxford Comma: What Writers Should Know

Which is the best for comma usage in fiction?

To be, or not to be? 

As I’ve been revising and editing “A New Past: Book One” to make a non-explicit version, I’ve run into an inconsistency in my editing tools. In the review tools built into Ulysses, where my definitive content lives, Oxford commas are used. This suggests a comma before the “and” in a list of items or phrases. 

In MS Word, which I use for final formatting before uploading to Amazon, the syntax tool says the comma before the and is not needed. 

For this edit, I’ve decided to use the Oxford comma, since it makes the intent of the dialogue and narrative more clear. What do you think?

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Secrets, Surveillance, and Survival in Technomancer

An excerpt from Technomancer.

“Elara!” Finn called out sharply as he watched one of the feeds from the neighborhood spy-cams he had set up. The three-person team in cheap business suits were too well organized to be random pollsters. He watched as they stopped people on the streets, showed them a paper, and then asked a couple of questions before moving on.

“What is it, Finn?” Elara asked as she sauntered into the living room with a towel around her shoulders. She was wearing the loose t-shirt and silken lounge pants he had purchased for her, looking much too attractive to be a fugitive from the government.

“I think people are looking for us,” he said as he watched the video. “This group is two blocks over, but they are looking for someone.”

Elara leaned in, looking at his phone with him.

Finn breathed in her scent. It was pure and clean, not some fragrance of soap he had stocked, but her own intoxicating smell. Finn shook his head. Now was not the time for distractions.

“We should get going,” Finn said.

Elara looked at him. They were almost ready anyhow. “I’ll get changed.”

If you want to learn more about Elara and Finn’s struggles to evade Big Brother, check out Technomancer, available now on Amazon.

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How to Edit Explicit Content out of Your Novel

Last week I shared a little about hitting a wall in my writing and some strategies to overcome partial blocks. One of the things I mentioned was performing a re-write on “A New Past”. I did a little analysis to see what would be involved in stripping out the explicit content and came up with about 15% of the book needing adjustment.

I’m happy to say it was not as drastic as I thought. At 186,000 words, 15% would be roughly 27,000 words to be edited or cleaned out. I’m happy to say the first re-edit is done, with the revised story sitting at approximately 174,000 words, which is about a 6.5% reduction.

How did I do this in such a short time?

I went through the novel, flagging each scene that had explicit content. I must say, some if it was relevant to the character arc I wanted to portray, so I could not just cut quickly. However, some of it was purely to put sexy-time in the book. I found those scenes were easiest to deal with. They were either cut, with a single transitional sentence covering that something romantic happened, or deleted entirely.

The problems were the scenes that are mentioned later in the books, or have some significant impact on the various character arcs. These were a little trickier to deal with. 

For example, there is a pretty graphic scene of the first time the two main characters, Paul and Jeryl, make love. Obviously, this is a turning point in their relationship, so cutting it entirely is not possible. Additionally, because there is much of their relationship up to this point building the tension for them to take the final step as a couple, I could not easily gloss over it. 

It was these types of scenes that required a lot of focus, editing, and re-writing. I’m not sure I’m done with all that yet, but I am pleased to have the first book done, and sitting for a cooling off period before I re-read and make a final editorial decision on it. 

If you’re interested in reading the “PG-13” version of the story, I’ll have some news for you in a month or so. Until then, subscribe here, or follow me on Amazon, GoodReads, or Facebook to get information about upcoming book releases.