Chrys Cymri's Blog
October 15, 2019
Penny White # Eight!
Penny returns!
'The Business of Bees' is now out on Kindle and paperback. Go to Amazon to order your copy!
____________________The Business of Bees
‘I'm not used to an entire country seeking me out,’ I said slowly. ‘Could you please explain why the Daear equivalent of the United States of America has sent three gryphons over to Lloegyr, what this has to do with bees, and why it’s me that they want?’
God knows my life has been very full the last eighteen months, ever since I stumbled across the magical country of Lloegyr. Living alongside dragons, gryphons, were-wolves, and a snail shark has been both a joy and a challenge. You’d think my friends would understand that red wine is the best medicine after another demanding day.
It would help, of course, if I could simply settle into my work with the not-weres at Saint Raphael’s. I might even be able to decide whether to accept Llewelyn’s marriage proposal. But gryphons have flown across the Atlantic to ask for my help in convincing honey bees to return to Earth. Once again I’m faced with leaving behind everything I know. Can I really cope without touching even a single drop of whisky?
'The Business of Bees' is now out on Kindle and paperback. Go to Amazon to order your copy!
____________________The Business of Bees
‘I'm not used to an entire country seeking me out,’ I said slowly. ‘Could you please explain why the Daear equivalent of the United States of America has sent three gryphons over to Lloegyr, what this has to do with bees, and why it’s me that they want?’
God knows my life has been very full the last eighteen months, ever since I stumbled across the magical country of Lloegyr. Living alongside dragons, gryphons, were-wolves, and a snail shark has been both a joy and a challenge. You’d think my friends would understand that red wine is the best medicine after another demanding day.
It would help, of course, if I could simply settle into my work with the not-weres at Saint Raphael’s. I might even be able to decide whether to accept Llewelyn’s marriage proposal. But gryphons have flown across the Atlantic to ask for my help in convincing honey bees to return to Earth. Once again I’m faced with leaving behind everything I know. Can I really cope without touching even a single drop of whisky?
December 28, 2018
Free Short Story
Download your copy of 'Taryn's Hunt: A Gryphon's Story'.
Can a human really be any good as a police officer?
Inspector Taryn is proud of her record in the city's police service. She might be small for a gryphon, but even the most hardened criminals have learned to fear her abilities.
Now her Superintendent has given her a human male as a partner. Can Peter prove himself worthy as they investigate a series of suspicious deaths?
Taryn and Peter are characters in the urban fantasy 'Penny White' series. This is how they first met.
Taryn's Hunt: A Gryphon's Story
Can a human really be any good as a police officer?
Inspector Taryn is proud of her record in the city's police service. She might be small for a gryphon, but even the most hardened criminals have learned to fear her abilities.
Now her Superintendent has given her a human male as a partner. Can Peter prove himself worthy as they investigate a series of suspicious deaths?
Taryn and Peter are characters in the urban fantasy 'Penny White' series. This is how they first met.
Taryn's Hunt: A Gryphon's Story
August 20, 2018
Writing Dialogue
Something which people have praised in my main series, ‘Penny White’, is that the dialogue is witty and that the characters have distinctive voices. How does a writer go about doing that? Here are some dos and don’ts that I try to keep in mind:
DO:
1 Listen
All the time. Listen to how people talk. Take note of any interesting verbal tics which you could use to differentiate a character. For example, one of my friends uses ‘basically’ regularly in his conversations. Are there regional differences, such as turns of phrase, which you can use?
Morey, the Welsh-speaking cat-sized gryphon in the ‘Penny White’ series, makes his first appearance in this way:
I blurted out, ‘You’re a gryphon.’
‘Oh, she’s a sharp one, she is.’
‘But I thought gryphons were larger.’
‘All this ego in a large package? Duw a’n gwaredo. Doors wouldn’t be big enough to get my head through.’ He swooped across the garden and landed on the wheelie bin resting nearby. ‘Know anything about snail hunting?’
2 Turn on the radio
Audio plays are a great way to pick up tips for dialogue. The lack of visuals means that setting and characterization have to be set by spoken words alone. I love the Big Finish ‘Doctor Who’ audio adventures, and I’m always listening out for ways to use dialogue to set a scene or define a character. Here’s Penny’s brother talking to Morey, the gryphon, in ‘The Cult of Unicorns’:
James grinned. ‘And I’ve met someone.’
‘Really?’ I took a sip of coffee. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Zarah. Or Sarah.’ He shrugged. ‘It was loud in the nightclub. But I’ve got her phone number. We’re going to meet up for New Year’s. It’s time my luck turned.’
‘What are your intentions towards this unidentified female?’ Morey asked.
‘What do you think?’ James leaned back in his chair. ‘Oh, I forgot. You can’t have it off with Taryn, can you? You’ve taken vows of celibacy, right?’
‘I took a vow of chastity, not celibacy,’ Morey said. ‘There is a difference. Chastity means no sexual relations outside the sanctity of marriage. What did they teach you at school?’
‘My sex education was mostly about putting condoms on bananas,’ James replied. ‘So, how does this chastity thing work, then?’
Morey cocked his head. ‘Well, you see, when two bananas really, really love each other, they get married and then there’s no need for condoms.’
3 Say it out loud
Read the dialogue to yourself, or to an obliging friend or family member. If it doesn’t sound natural to you, it won’t sound natural to your readers. Also bear in mind sentence length. Most people do have to stop to breathe from time to time.
4 Find alternative ways of indicating who is speaking
You can use actions rather than always using ‘said’ to indicate who is speaking and how. These actions can also help the reader understand the emotions in the speaker’s voice. An example from ‘The Vexation of Vampires’:
Uncertainty was trickling yellow along the snail’s tentacles. ‘Because you’re you.’ His colour didn’t change. ‘Because you’re Clyde.’ Still no change. ‘Well, because, well, I’m proud of you and, you know, I guess, well, yes, in any way that matters, you’re my son.’
Blue and purple suffused his body, chased by bright pink. ‘Mam,’ he agreed. And I put him down so I could grab some toilet tissue to blow my nose.
5 Use incorrect grammar in dialogue
In some parts of my country (Great Britain), the local dialect includes people saying ‘Me and my friend’ (versus the grammatically correct ‘My friend and I’). People drop words all the time, for example, ‘Ready to go out?’ rather than ‘Are you ready to go out?’
Don’t:
1 Avoid contractions
Writers seem to think that a lack of contractions indicates greater learning, or helps evoke a time period (if they’ve set their work in the past). It comes over as clunky unless it’s a character point. For example, the forest unicorns in my novels avoid contractions, whereas their urban counterparts don’t.
2 Use strange spellings to reflect accents
This is something I regret doing in my first two novels. If you are altering too many words, readers can struggle to read the dialogue. Maybe pick a couple of words to amend, and use local sayings to highlight the speaker’s origin. Here’s an example from ‘The Vengeance of Snails’:
James stretched his legs and passed me. ‘By the way, what’re you doing here? I didn’t think we got praying mantises in England.’
‘I hatched in les Etats-Unis, one of the English-speaking parts.’ The triangular head turned to look up at James. ‘I was fixing to tie the knot, but y’all know how it is. Rooster one day, a feather duster the next. So I found me a dragon to take me far away from the wife-to-be.’
3 Pull out the thesaurus
The most useful word for dialogue tags is ‘said’. Trust me. Don't feel that you need to reach for more than that. And, no, people cannot ‘smile’ a sentence.
4 Throw in lots of adverbs
Trust your dialogue to let your reader know the tone in which the character has spoken. As above, ‘said’ is a great word. Don’t add lots of adverbs. ‘She said smugly’, ‘He said sadly’. If your characters says, ‘I would never have made a mistake like that,’ we’ll understand that she’s smug. ‘Gosh, I really miss my mom.’ Surely that’s a sad statement? And if you use an exclamation mark, there’s no need to state ‘he shouted’ never mind ‘he shouted loudly’.
In conclusion, well-handled dialogue can be used to craft characters and to set the scene more quickly than long narrative descriptions.
DO:
1 Listen
All the time. Listen to how people talk. Take note of any interesting verbal tics which you could use to differentiate a character. For example, one of my friends uses ‘basically’ regularly in his conversations. Are there regional differences, such as turns of phrase, which you can use?
Morey, the Welsh-speaking cat-sized gryphon in the ‘Penny White’ series, makes his first appearance in this way:
I blurted out, ‘You’re a gryphon.’
‘Oh, she’s a sharp one, she is.’
‘But I thought gryphons were larger.’
‘All this ego in a large package? Duw a’n gwaredo. Doors wouldn’t be big enough to get my head through.’ He swooped across the garden and landed on the wheelie bin resting nearby. ‘Know anything about snail hunting?’
2 Turn on the radio
Audio plays are a great way to pick up tips for dialogue. The lack of visuals means that setting and characterization have to be set by spoken words alone. I love the Big Finish ‘Doctor Who’ audio adventures, and I’m always listening out for ways to use dialogue to set a scene or define a character. Here’s Penny’s brother talking to Morey, the gryphon, in ‘The Cult of Unicorns’:
James grinned. ‘And I’ve met someone.’
‘Really?’ I took a sip of coffee. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Zarah. Or Sarah.’ He shrugged. ‘It was loud in the nightclub. But I’ve got her phone number. We’re going to meet up for New Year’s. It’s time my luck turned.’
‘What are your intentions towards this unidentified female?’ Morey asked.
‘What do you think?’ James leaned back in his chair. ‘Oh, I forgot. You can’t have it off with Taryn, can you? You’ve taken vows of celibacy, right?’
‘I took a vow of chastity, not celibacy,’ Morey said. ‘There is a difference. Chastity means no sexual relations outside the sanctity of marriage. What did they teach you at school?’
‘My sex education was mostly about putting condoms on bananas,’ James replied. ‘So, how does this chastity thing work, then?’
Morey cocked his head. ‘Well, you see, when two bananas really, really love each other, they get married and then there’s no need for condoms.’
3 Say it out loud
Read the dialogue to yourself, or to an obliging friend or family member. If it doesn’t sound natural to you, it won’t sound natural to your readers. Also bear in mind sentence length. Most people do have to stop to breathe from time to time.
4 Find alternative ways of indicating who is speaking
You can use actions rather than always using ‘said’ to indicate who is speaking and how. These actions can also help the reader understand the emotions in the speaker’s voice. An example from ‘The Vexation of Vampires’:
Uncertainty was trickling yellow along the snail’s tentacles. ‘Because you’re you.’ His colour didn’t change. ‘Because you’re Clyde.’ Still no change. ‘Well, because, well, I’m proud of you and, you know, I guess, well, yes, in any way that matters, you’re my son.’
Blue and purple suffused his body, chased by bright pink. ‘Mam,’ he agreed. And I put him down so I could grab some toilet tissue to blow my nose.
5 Use incorrect grammar in dialogue
In some parts of my country (Great Britain), the local dialect includes people saying ‘Me and my friend’ (versus the grammatically correct ‘My friend and I’). People drop words all the time, for example, ‘Ready to go out?’ rather than ‘Are you ready to go out?’
Don’t:
1 Avoid contractions
Writers seem to think that a lack of contractions indicates greater learning, or helps evoke a time period (if they’ve set their work in the past). It comes over as clunky unless it’s a character point. For example, the forest unicorns in my novels avoid contractions, whereas their urban counterparts don’t.
2 Use strange spellings to reflect accents
This is something I regret doing in my first two novels. If you are altering too many words, readers can struggle to read the dialogue. Maybe pick a couple of words to amend, and use local sayings to highlight the speaker’s origin. Here’s an example from ‘The Vengeance of Snails’:
James stretched his legs and passed me. ‘By the way, what’re you doing here? I didn’t think we got praying mantises in England.’
‘I hatched in les Etats-Unis, one of the English-speaking parts.’ The triangular head turned to look up at James. ‘I was fixing to tie the knot, but y’all know how it is. Rooster one day, a feather duster the next. So I found me a dragon to take me far away from the wife-to-be.’
3 Pull out the thesaurus
The most useful word for dialogue tags is ‘said’. Trust me. Don't feel that you need to reach for more than that. And, no, people cannot ‘smile’ a sentence.
4 Throw in lots of adverbs
Trust your dialogue to let your reader know the tone in which the character has spoken. As above, ‘said’ is a great word. Don’t add lots of adverbs. ‘She said smugly’, ‘He said sadly’. If your characters says, ‘I would never have made a mistake like that,’ we’ll understand that she’s smug. ‘Gosh, I really miss my mom.’ Surely that’s a sad statement? And if you use an exclamation mark, there’s no need to state ‘he shouted’ never mind ‘he shouted loudly’.
In conclusion, well-handled dialogue can be used to craft characters and to set the scene more quickly than long narrative descriptions.
March 3, 2018
Raven's Flight: A Dragon Romance
I'm excited to announce the release of this novella. It's available on Amazon, but you can get it for free if you sign up to my email list: https://chryscymri.authorreach.com/le...
Here's the blurb:
Why had his mother tried to kill him? What had he done to deserve death? Raven looked up at the sky. Tears trickled from the dragon’s eyes, making the stars and sliver of moon dance and blur.
Raven fled from the family longhouse the moment he was born. Wounded both physically and emotionally from his flight, he finds refuge in the company of Audrey, a human whose plane had crashed in an isolated mountain valley. The seasons pass, and Raven grows closer to the woman as he reaches his full size. He hopes and prays that one day he’ll be strong enough to take Audrey to where she most wants to go, a place called London. But what will she do if they ever reach the city?
Raven is the darkly beautiful dragon who features in the urban fantasy series, ‘Penny White’. This novella is his origin story.
Raven's Flight: A Dragon Romance
Here's the blurb:
Why had his mother tried to kill him? What had he done to deserve death? Raven looked up at the sky. Tears trickled from the dragon’s eyes, making the stars and sliver of moon dance and blur.
Raven fled from the family longhouse the moment he was born. Wounded both physically and emotionally from his flight, he finds refuge in the company of Audrey, a human whose plane had crashed in an isolated mountain valley. The seasons pass, and Raven grows closer to the woman as he reaches his full size. He hopes and prays that one day he’ll be strong enough to take Audrey to where she most wants to go, a place called London. But what will she do if they ever reach the city?
Raven is the darkly beautiful dragon who features in the urban fantasy series, ‘Penny White’. This novella is his origin story.
Raven's Flight: A Dragon Romance
February 12, 2018
Pre-order Penny White # 5!
I'm excited to announce that the fifth Penny White adventure, 'The Vexation of Vampires' will be released on Monday, 26 February.
You can pre-order your copy on the following link:
myBook.to/PWVexationVampires
Happy reading!
You can pre-order your copy on the following link:
myBook.to/PWVexationVampires
Happy reading!
February 3, 2018
Cover reveal
My February newsletter has just been published, and I'm excited to bring you the cover reveal of Penny White's fifth adventure, 'The Vexation of Vampires'!
I hope to have the book on pre-order very soon, and I'll make an announcement to my subscribers and a blog post here.
If you haven't yet subscribed to my newsletter, you can read this month's version here:
https://authorreach.com/email/campaig...
I hope to have the book on pre-order very soon, and I'll make an announcement to my subscribers and a blog post here.
If you haven't yet subscribed to my newsletter, you can read this month's version here:
https://authorreach.com/email/campaig...
January 23, 2018
On-line short story
I've just added a Clyde short story to my website blog. Read it here:
http://chryscymri.com/blog/an-intervi...
http://chryscymri.com/blog/an-intervi...
December 27, 2017
Holiday Book Sale
An exciting opportunity to add some free books to your Kindle!
Science fiction and fantasy authors have come together to for a special sale over the first five days after Christmas.
One of the books is the second Penny White adventure, 'The Cult of Unicorns'. So if you haven't got around to reading it, now is your chance to grab a copy for free.
The first book in the series, 'The Temptation of Dragons', is currently 99p, if for any reason you don't yet have this in your ebook collection.
Click on this link:
https://mybookcave.com/retailer-group...
Science fiction and fantasy authors have come together to for a special sale over the first five days after Christmas.
One of the books is the second Penny White adventure, 'The Cult of Unicorns'. So if you haven't got around to reading it, now is your chance to grab a copy for free.
The first book in the series, 'The Temptation of Dragons', is currently 99p, if for any reason you don't yet have this in your ebook collection.
Click on this link:
https://mybookcave.com/retailer-group...
December 12, 2017
December Newsletter
The December Newsletter has been sent out to all those who have subscribed to my email list.
Highlights include photos of my recent travels, and links to a couple of exciting book giveaways.
Here's a link to the on-line version:
https://authorreach.com/email/campaig...
And if you haven't already subscribed to my email list (and downloaded your free short story), just click here:
http://chryscymri.com/newsletter.html
Happy reading!
Highlights include photos of my recent travels, and links to a couple of exciting book giveaways.
Here's a link to the on-line version:
https://authorreach.com/email/campaig...
And if you haven't already subscribed to my email list (and downloaded your free short story), just click here:
http://chryscymri.com/newsletter.html
Happy reading!
November 16, 2017
Free Clyde Short Story
I've written a short story based on everyone's favourite snail shark, Clyde!
The story is exclusive to those who have subscribed to my newsletter list. If you haven't signed up, go here:
http://chryscymri.com/newsletter.html
Happy reading!
The story is exclusive to those who have subscribed to my newsletter list. If you haven't signed up, go here:
http://chryscymri.com/newsletter.html
Happy reading!
