L.T. Getty's Blog

Part 1 was focusing on what the story was about. Part 2 is how to make plot twists less forced.

A big issue with a lot of stories is that the MC often feels like they’re fate’s play thing. They go to a given village because the plot demands it. On your first drift of a WIP, that’s normal, but eventually you’re going to want to not break the contract with the reader. You shouldn’t wonder why the MC did that, it should feel natural. More importantly, when you get to a big betrayal scene, or a p...

No matter how much blood sweat and tears you put into a project, us creative types get a bright shiny new idea. Sometimes, that means we rush to finish the current one or abandon the WIP with the other unfinished projects. Other times, we want to throw that new idea into the story.

I’m a huge fan of taking breaks when needed, as it gives me time to think about what does and doesn’t work on a story, but I’m also a believer in finishing what I started. That isn’t to say I won’t listen to beta r...

As mentioned before: Champagne Books has folded. I will start by saying thank you to Ellen and Cassie; Renee I never really got to work with you. I knew change was on the horizon my two cents were to give her a chance to figure things out as I have plenty of other responsibilities to keep myself occupied and in general, I believe in moving forward not looking back. Thanks to everyone who made the covers and the editors even though we often disagreed I tried to keep things professional. I don’t b...

Unreliable narrators are fun for me as a reader, because I like seeing what you did there. I shouldn’t have to second guess what is being put out in the news.

The first bit of commentary I put out the day of Charlie Kirk’s assassination was a news commentator saying, “We have no idea what this could be and that it could easily be someone firing a gun in the air to celebrate the event”. That genius has since been fired and says his words were misconstrued.

I agree with waiting for evidence ...

Sorry for my silence here I have been wondering how to respond to the insanity of the past few weeks, with more to come I’m sure. It’s funny how I try not to get overly political, but some things blend into my writing, because I’m typically not just making a bland piece of tofu that you can season how you like.

I will start out with saying please try not to watch murders on social media unless you want to analyze them. I really wrestled with watching the video of the killing of Iryna Zutska u...

I realized last night that I updated Instagram and Facebook, but not here. Oh well.

Again, Hannah Sternjakob is the artist. I like her work so no surprise I love this; Caleb’s pauldron reminds me of Guts from Berserk haha. I could go on about how irked I get when covers aren’t cohesive in the same series but, I feel like I’d be preaching to the choir.

I’m still working out the official back blurb, still got a ton of work to do but yes, the rough draft is done. Mostly it’s the final fig...

I was gonna photoshop out the “AI Generated” in the bottom, I found a feature on my phone that let me do some clean up without the use of Paintshop. No, it doesn’t say “The Pir” Or whatever; the AI guessed it’s “The Puppetmaster Duology” like Book 1. AI was only used to take out some of the rough bits on my phone, honestly it’s easy but a little too easy, if that makes any sense. I know some basic comic-style coloring techniques and occassionally goof around with other features, so if someth...

              Twelve days off!

               Champagne Books is going through some changes, and I have asked for the Rights back to Rogue Healer. Titan’s Ascent was supposed to come out this year, the short is I never felt like the series was at the right house. I think people who are unfamiliar with fantasy as a genre want to lump all of it in one massive category, which hey that’s fine if you’re okay with me saying the same thing about westerns or romance, but I am well read enough to know...

               I always have a hard time with thinking of young adult literature as its own thing because I was reading Edgar Rice Burroughs and Pippi Longstockings at the same time. Books for me were either for kids learning how to read, or they simply were books. Don’t get me wrong, I knew certain books would be read around certain grades, but generally speaking nothing was really off limits. Yes, I read some books like Dune too early to really understand what was going on, but I never gav...

               Smeckin’ around the forces of hell? I don’t think you have to be especially religious to find a group of guys who would suit up and blast demons back to the pit from whence they came.

               But what happens when one of the characters is half-demon? I’ve seen this done before and depending on how it’s depicted, as a rule this makes me nervous, mostly because so many bad depictions of trying to make the forces of darkness misunderstood or some rubbish. I watched this mov...