Will, Way, and Heart

Meditation, rest, and nourishment…that is how you restore will, way, and heart. To ignore one is to weaken the others.

                                    ~Maseer, wizard and Lord of the Seven Cities

While brainstorming for Gift of Shadow, it was vitally important to me that the novel would have unique elements to its magic system. Yes, there would be spells, and some of those spells would be recognizable to readers of fantasy (or players of Dungeons & Dragons), but what would be different would be how that magic is accessed. Ultimately, I devised the system of Will, Way, and Heart. 

Magic in Prima (the central, mundane realm at the center of the Nine Realms) is not exclusively limited to certain individuals. Theoretically, anyone can perform magic. Having said that, some people have a greater affinity for magic, just as in the real world, some individuals are exceptionally gifted artists or athletes. Whether you have an inherent affinity for some activity or not, the path to true mastery comes from developing your will, way, and heart. 

Will

Will is concentration and willpower. It is the ability to focus one’s mind and ignore distractions with the intent of achieving some goal. Do some people have stronger will than others? Absolutely. We see it all the time. Can will be improved? Again, yes. Through mental training, a person can enhance their will, strengthening their mind and increasing their overall mastery. 

Way

Way is simply knowledge. It is knowing how to accomplish something. In the case of magic, this information is highly academic, including the study of mystical runes, alchemy, arcana, and language (both verbal, written, and sign). The curriculum is challenging, and not everyone can master the required subjects. This is not a case of only certain individuals having an inherited, natural ability to do magic; it is the fact that some find the subject too challenging for them. There is an exception to way being necessary to do magic. Creatures of the eight Outer Realms do have an inherent affinity for certain types of magic. A fairy’s ability to charm, a ghost’s ability to possess, or a fire elemental’s ability to control fire requires only will and heart. Way is inherent to them. 

Heart

Heart is strength of body and mind. Magic, in Prima, requires energy. As we participate in an activity, whether performing magic or running a 10K, we expend energy. Heart is our store of energy. In video game terms, it is those two red and blue globes (or lines) on your screen that represent “mana” and “health”. The more you cast spells, the more work you do, the more effort you put out, the more physical and emotional punishment you take, the more you are drained of heart. While will represents your ability to concentrate and focus, heart gives you the endurance to perform magic repeatedly. An additional note on heart: no human body can contain the energy necessary to manipulate the material world in the way certain magic spells do. So how is this accomplished? All magic in Prima is pulled from the eight, magical Outer Realms (more about them in my next post). Heart allows you to maintain that connection and channel the energy of the Outer Realms without the spell consuming you. This is also why Prima is known to the wise as Mundane. It has no magic of its own, but “steals” magic from the Outer Realms. 

(Clarity)

The intersection of will and way is clarity. If you have the willingness and knowledge to do something, you have clarity of intent. You simply need heart to sustain the action to achieve your goal. 

(Potential)

The intersection of way and heart is potential. You know how to do something, and you have the physical and mental fortitude to bring it to a conclusion; you just need the motivation that comes from will to make it happen. 

(Intensity)

The intersection of will and heart is intensity. You are willing to accomplish a task, you have the energy to complete it, but you just don’t know how to do so. You need to find the way. 

The intersection of all three—will, way, and heart—is magic. In truth, will, way, and heart go beyond magic—they result in mastery. If you want to achieve anything or accomplish something great, don’t you need will, way, and heart? 

Plotting versus Pantsing

Gift of Shadow is my seventh novel, but it marks a significant transition from how I’ve previously written my novels. First of all, it is the first story set outside the world of The Orb series. The characters and story are entirely unrelated to my other books. Secondly, while The Orb is an epic fantasy, and The Green Wyvern is more a sword and sorcery tale, Gift of Shadow is a grimdark fantasy. Finally, my approach to writing Gift of Shadow was much different from that of my other novels. Previously, I was a plotter, more so with my earlier novels than later ones, but Gift of Shadow was a seat-of-the-pants ride. 

When I set out to write my first novel, Eternal Knight, I did so with great enthusiasm and little preparation. All I knew was that I wanted to write an epic fantasy about a good guy who turns into a bad guy. And so, with very little planning, I wrote a one-page outline and started writing. Let me tell you, things did not go well. I fumbled through writing a page or two, realized it was a disaster, and decided on a different approach. Instead of starting at the beginning, I would pick a climactic scene in the later stage of the novel and write that first. Well, that was just as bad. As was my approach of writing the conclusion first. Dismayed, I realized I needed help. 

I was in college at the time, and approached my Creative Writing professor for advice. He listened to my woes and then started asking me questions about my world. What’s the geography? What religion do they follow? How is their government run? What is the basis of the economy? What technology do they employ? He also asked me about my characters. What did they look like? What were their personalities? What were their backstories? I was at a loss. Yes, I vaguely knew this was a second-world fantasy novel loosely based on medieval Europe. I knew my protagonist was an exiled prince and that his father was an asshole, but beyond that, I didn’t have a clue. 

And so, for a year, I devoted myself entirely to worldbuilding and character creation. In social studies terms, I thoroughly outlined the GETWAGS of the world. GETWAGS? Geography, economics, technology, world-view, arts, government, and social structures. For my characters, I created Dungeons & Dragons-style character sheets, which included ability scores, skills, magic, and equipment. I drew maps, sketches, timelines, and architectural plans — a notebook full of them. And then, after that year of effort, I started writing again. 

All the effort paid off. The writing flowed. I felt good about my story. The word count continued to rise, and I saw real progress. It went so well that it only took another ten years to finish the rough manuscript, which, by the way, weighed in at over 250,000 words. For those of you not in the writing game—that’s a big book! (By the way, after editing, it was 115,000 words.) 

Ten years, though? Why so long? Because I was still an amateur in my early twenties. For the most part, I still didn’t know what I was doing. When I read my manuscript, I saw the weaknesses in my own writing and compared it to Tolkien's, and I would promptly give up on my dreams. Sometimes for years at a time. I kept coming back, though, and eventually persevered. 

It still wasn’t good, but I’ll save the story of how I improved as a writer for another time. 

As I said before, Gift of Shadow is my seventh novel. How have things changed from when I started? 

First of all, Gift of Shadow is much more of a character-based novel. The Orb series was inspired by a story I wanted to tell. The story of a good person turning into a bad person. A story about the pursuit of power. When I wrote The Green Wyvern, it marked a shift. I came up with a character and set them off into the world and asked them to survive. But it was a world I knew very well. It was set in the same world as The Orb novels, albeit in a much later time period. With Gift of Shadow, I started with a character and almost no worldbuilding. In fact, the only worldbuilding that occurred stemmed from character creation. 

I knew that Gift was a wizard’s apprentice. This meant that it would be a fantasy world with a formal structure for learning magic. Gift’s master was not only a wizard but a mighty lord. So it was a world with a system of nobility. Gift had recently escaped from the Realm of Shadow, but I only knew that Shadow was deadly and terrifying—otherwise, it was mostly undefined. I knew that there were other realms, but I had only a vague idea of how many and what they consisted of. Finally, I knew that Gift had a dog (a puppy) as a companion, because Gift was based on a Dungeons and Dragons shadow sorcerer, and at sixth level, they get a Hound of Ill Omen. But in this case, it would start the book as a puppy. Finally, due to the traumatic events that had happened to her in Shadow, Gift had only a fractured memory of her time spent there. 

Ultimately, I started writing the novel with a fairly well-defined character (a young, vulnerable-looking wizard’s apprentice who had survived the savage Realm of Shadow) and her goal (to get back to her wizard master). I knew the world would be vaguely reminiscent of the Northern European Dark Ages. I didn’t know the specifics of the world (no GETWAGS), the importance of the Nine Realms, or how the magic system worked. Very importantly, I had no plot. I had no idea what was going to happen.

So how was I going to write a book? It was going to be seat-of-the-pants, but I had a plan. Any time there was a fork in the road, any time something bad could happen to Gift—I would make that happen. I would throw everything I could at her and force her to survive it. It was both cruel and fun, and I don’t know what that says about me. 

Fun, but challenging. The worldbuilding had to be done while I wrote. I meant that I had the chance to be super creative, but it also meant a lot of going back and changing things I’d written before. Magic, the realms, geography, and history all had to be consistent throughout the novel. I made story decisions very late in the book that required revisions, going back to the first page. Many of these changes wouldn’t have been necessary if I’d done all of the worldbuilding ahead of time. But would I have been as creative if I’d locked myself into a pre-made worldbuilding “box”? 

Will I write this way again? Hell yes! Will I write every book this way? Hell no! Seat-of-the-pants worked very well for a sword-and-sorcery grimdark novel with a single protagonist discovering the world. There’s no way I’d attempt a multi-character, multi-plot epic fantasy without serious planning and worldbuilding. 

There’s no one right way to write a novel. One style will work on one author but be a catastrophe for another. Be wary of people who tell you there’s only one way to write a book. I will end with one note: whatever style of writing you choose, the book only gets finished if you put in the effort. You can dream about it all you want, but you have to get the words on the page. Don’t worry if they’re an awful jumble at first—get them on the page. 

Inspiration

What inspires a novel? For me, it’s very straightforward. My first novel, Eternal Knight, was inspired by a movie series I wish I could love more, as well as a book series that really frustrated me. I guess, in a way, you could call it negative inspiration. I saw something I wanted to like, but didn’t, so instead of complaining about it, I’d make it my own. 

The movie series was Star Wars — I’m talking about the original three movies here. What was my complaint? Luke Skywalker should have gone to the dark side. He was immature, impulsive, emotional, and never finished his training. He was a perfect Sith candidate. If Luke turns into a bad guy, who then should have been the hero? Princess Leia. Cool, competent, controlled Leia. She would have been a great Jedi. Many will disagree with me, and that’s fine. I’m not here to debate Star Wars.

I’m here to talk about inspiration. Star Wars inspired me to write a book about a hero who turns into a villain—a chosen one who can’t resist the call of the dark side. Yes, I'm familiar with Anakin and his story, but I began writing Eternal Knight in 1986, thirteen years before The Phantom Menace was released. I’m telling you what inspired me to write at the time.

The second inspiration came from a very well-known fantasy series. I’m not going to name it, as I’m not big on dumping on another writer’s work, so I’ll leave it at that. But in this series, the protagonists eventually become so powerful that all sense of jeopardy is lost. It was very clear that the author loved their characters so much that nothing awful was ever going to happen to them. 

So there was the second part of my inspiration. I’d write a book that would beat up its heroes and create a genuine sense of jeopardy. A book where no one was truly safe. Those initial inspiring ideas spawned a five-novel series called The Orb, as well as a sixth book set in the same world. 

On December 5th, I’ll release my latest novel, Gift of Shadow. It departs from my other books in many ways. Gift of Shadow is a grimdark fantasy novel, set in its own world, and is unconnected to The Orb. Gift, the protagonist, was inspired by a character I created for a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. She was a Shadow Sorceress with an origin story I loved, but then our Dungeon Master told us he was running a nautical campaign. I switched to a Storm Sorceress instead. 

The thing is, I couldn’t get Gift out of my head. She had such a cool backstory that the more I thought about her, the more I realized that her story needed to be told. So, instead of telling it around a D&D table, I’d do it in a novel instead. 

We draw inspiration from all around us—art, movies, television, books, people, travel, nature, and more. And, as Mark Twain said, “There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations.” Take your inspiration from the world around you and make it your own.

Gift of Shadow Preorders

Preorders for the ebook of Gift of Shadow are now open! You can purchase it now, and it will be delivered to your reading device on December 5th.

All my best,

Matt

Looking for Gift of Shadow ARC Readers

 

Hello, Friends!

My latest novel, Gift of Shadow, is coming out on December 5th. I'm looking for volunteers who would like to receive an ebook Advance Reader Copy (ARC) in return for your expressed willingness to write a review when the novel comes out.

This is not an obligation! If you never get around to reading it, don't finish it, or for any reason don't want to leave a review, that is perfectly fine.

Reviews don't have to be anything fancy. They usually involve a star rating and can only be a few sentences long. Longer reviews are appreciated, but aren't necessary.

Follow this link for details on how to get your ARC.

Thank you!

Matt

Puppy Rough Draft Done

 Sooo...it's been a while! I've been busy, but clearly not with blogging. 

What's brought me back to my poor little neglected blog? I've finished writing another book. This book is different in many ways. The biggest news is that it isn't set in the same world as my other six novels. Why did I change worlds? This book simply required different world-building in order for it to work. The magic system, geography, and cultures all had to change. 

Another big change is that this book is a grimdark fantasy. And I've definitely embraced the grim and the dark. I pretty much decided that whenever my character faced a situation, I'd choose the worst outcome possible. This wasn't very kind to my protagonist, but did make for a good grimdark novel. 

The rough draft of the cover by Dallas Williams.

Where am I right now? The novel is finished, and I've sent out nine manuscripts to my beta readers. Two have been returned so far.

I had a great day editing today. It took five hours, but I worked through all of Shelley Uthgenannt's edits on my "Puppy" manuscript. Shelley is my editor/proofreader and does a fantastic job with my books. She's worked on all of my books except for Eternal Knight.

Bob Sulentic finished his beta read the day after I gave it to him (this was a couple of weeks ago). It's always a good sign when someone reads your book in one day! He made some excellent catches and provided some great feedback.

The manuscript improves with each beta. I don't need all nine of them to publish, but the more, the merrier.

I still have several steps to go:

1) More beta reads and edits.
2) A title! (Yeah, I don't have a title yet.)
3) The final version of the cover.

Publication date? Sometime this fall.

Green Wyvern Kindle Countdown

 Hi everyone!

Just wanted to let everyone know that The Green Wyvern is a  Kindle Countdown Deal for this week. You can pick up the ebook for just $.99 on Amazon. You can also read it for free if you are a Kindle Unlimited subscriber. 

I've been working on the sequel (there will be two volumes in The Green Wyvern) and another project as well. Not long ago I came up with an awesome concept for a D&D character that I just couldn't get out of my head. Well...that character's backstory led to the concept for a novel and now I'm 10,000 words in after only three days. For now, I'm going to keep working on that project (working title: Puppy). I've got great momentum and the word count is just flying. 

Don't worry, I'll get back to Bull very soon!

Green Wyvern Publication Day

Happy birthday to The Green Wyvern! It's publication day!

Here's the blurb...

Baron Theodus of Sursival arrives at the Green Wyvern Inn to tell his life story. Each night, he returns to regale the townspeople with tales of monsters, treasure, foes, and friends. And when his story is done, he says he will leave his subjects, never to return.

To most people, the baron’s name is Bull. He is a giant of a man. They say the great warrior has never been defeated in battle, but he will tell you those tales are lies. He has come to set the record straight and promises to tell the whole story of his life: victories and losses alike.

Tonight, he will tell the tale of his road to adventure. It starts with a goblin raid that leaves Bull, his sister, and his mother as penniless refugees on a perilous journey. The trials that follow push Bull to the very edge of human endurance.

The Green Wyvern is set in the same world as the five novels of The Orb, however, it takes place five hundred years later. For those who haven't read The Orb, don't worry, you don't need to have read the previous books to thoroughly enjoy The Green Wyvern.

The Green Wyvern was actually born out of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. A group of my friends joined me for a campaign in which I was the Dungeon Master. I set the game in the world of The Orb (which all of them had read). I thought it would be a blast to run a game in a fantasy world that I'd created. 

I was right. It was awesome. 

The campaign was very story-driven, and as it went on I kept a very careful journal of everything that transpired. Not only that, but my players created an awesome cast of characters. Well, when the campaign ended, I just couldn't let the story go. I had to turn it into a novel. 

No, The Green Wyvern is not simply a log of our D&D adventures. In fact, the story is heavily modified from the campaign. The characters are as well. The way I'd put it is that the book is inspired by our D&D campaign. 

Are there more Green Wyvern novels to come? 

Absolutely? There will be two to three more in the series. And they should come pretty quickly. In fact, I should get back to writing right now. 

Green Wyvern Cover Art

 Here it is! The full-color cover art for The Green Wyvern: Volume One. I'm posting it today because The Green Wyvern is now available for pre-order on Amazon. I've set the pre-order price at $.99 so that friends, family, and fans can pick it up at a low price. The ebook price will rise to $3.49 after the release date on April 21st. 

The cover art is by Dallas Williams. He's a wonderful artist to work with. I couldn't be happier with the work he did on this cover--and all my other covers for that matter. 

The Green Wyvern was my favorite novel to write so far. I really enjoyed writing in the first-person point of view. I'm looking forward to diving into the next book in the series. 

Here's a link to The Green Wyvern on Amazon. I hope you enjoy it!

The Green Wyvern: Volume One

Progress Report and Kindle Unlimited

 

Hello everyone!

I made a big decision a while ago. Instead of publishing my "Bull" novellas as individual books, I decided to collect them together and put them out as a single novel in four parts. It will be published as The Green Wyvern. 

You can see a rough draft of the cover for The Green Wyvern above. The artwork is by Dallas Williams, the same artist who did the work on The Orb series. He's been fantastic to work with and has knocked it out of the park again. I love his work. 

I've been making great progress and expect to publish The Green Wyvern in mid-April. I've also decided to do a publishing experiment and will join the Kindle Unlimited program. This means that my books will be available exclusively through Amazon. I'll lose all of my sales on Apple, Barnes and Noble, and Google, but the increased visibility on Amazon should result in more sales overall. That's the experiment, at least. I'll try it for six months and see what happens. 

If you buy my books from non-Amazon sellers, you'll have a week to pick up any books you haven't yet read. They will still be available to your e-readers even if my books aren't sold at those establishments any longer. 

Hope you're all doing well! All my best,

Matt

Artifact Space

 

Artifact Space is one of the best science fiction novels I’ve ever read.

I’ve been a fan of Miles (Christian) Cameron for some time. He brings the same great storytelling and world-building to his science fiction that I’ve experienced in his fantasy and historical fiction.

Cameron is a terrific storyteller. In Artifact Space, we follow Marca Nbaro, a troubled orphan who illegally gains a commission as a junior officer on a massive Greatship. Nbaro is a great protagonist, and Cameron does a wonderful job with her development over the course of the novel.

When I say Greatship, think supercarrier crossed with a giant container ship. The Greatships are massive merchant ships and are the lifeblood of human civilization. Cameron served in the United States Navy as an intelligence officer and crewmember of an S-3 Viking. These experiences shine through in his realistic depiction of life on a massive spaceship. One of the things I most love about Cameron’s books is how he brings out the details of life (clothing, training, technology, social structure, economics, and more) without lecturing the audience. Everything comes out organically in the story and adds tremendous depth to the world he’s creating.  

Artifact Space is a grittier, more realistic style of science fiction. It’s not magical fantasy (Star Wars) in space. Cameron pays attention to physics, Newtonian laws, and realistic technology (The Expanse). It is a style I much prefer in my science fiction.

I’m not going to go into the details of the story. I’ll just say that it is part spy thriller, military space epic, and space exploration novel in one package. Cameron makes it all work together seamlessly. I give Artifact Space my highest recommendation.

Bull and the Goblin Raid

Surprise! I wrote another book!

I wasn’t planning on releasing a book so quickly after The Emerald Gate, but fate forced my hand. I’ve had Bull and the Goblin Raid ready to go for some time now, but was going to wait and give some spacing between it and The Emerald Gate. I also wanted to work on the sequel to Bull as it is a serialized novel and I want to publish on a fairly rapid pace. However, the Self Published Fantasy Blog Off just announced that they opening for entries next Saturday, and I can’t miss this opportunity. SPFBO is a fantastic writing contest for self-published authors.

I am extremely excited about Bull and the Goblin Raid. It is based in the same world as my The Orb novels, but is set 500 years later. Hadde, Ayja, Telea, Nidon, and the others are historical figures to the characters in Bull. You don’t have to have read any of my other novels in order to read Bull.

Bull and the Goblin Raid is different from how I’ve written before in a couple of ways. Bull is written in the first person. I can’t express how much I enjoyed writing in the first person. It was a fantastic, refreshing way to tell a story. The voice of Bull is unlike anything I’ve ever written. Bull and the Goblin Raid is also a short novel. It is 44,000 words long. Eternal Knight was 115,000 and The Dromost Gate was 200,000 by comparison. 40,000 words is really the minimum length you can write and still call a book a novel. By the way, Bull is only available as an ebook. Once I’ve written four Bull books, I’ll bundle them and turn them into a paperback.

The premise of the Bull novels is that an aged warrior who has come to The Green Wyvern Inn to tell the story of his life. Each night Bull will return to tell a little more of his life’s story. Each book of the series is another night of storytelling. Bull and the Goblin Raid tells the tale of his life up until Bull is seventeen and his life is turned upside down my a major life event.

The event may, or may not, be a goblin raid.

I hope you check it out. I am so excited for this book. And if you enjoy it, please leave a review on your favorite bookseller’s website. Reviews are hugely important for independent authors.

Release Day!

Release Day!

Today I'm celebrating the official release of The Emerald Gate. The Emerald Gate is the fifth (and final) book of The Orb fantasy series.

To make it extra special, I've discounted the ebook of Eternal Knight (book one) to free and Child of the Knight (book two) to $.99.

It's been a long journey. I started writing Eternal Knight in 1988! It's an amazing, wonderful feeling to complete something that's been a part of my life for such a long time.

The Orb might be drawing to a close, but I have more books on the way in the very near future. If you haven't read my books, this is a perfect opportunity to start!

Enjoy!

Emerald Gate Countdown

As the new year rolled around I decided I needed to make some changes. Writing had to take a higher priority and goofing off had to be moved down the list. It didn't hurt that I'd just started writing Bull and the Goblin Raid (more about that in a later post) and was loving it. Writing in the first person was a fun, refreshing change. So I said goodbye to my spaceships in EVE Online and said hello to Scrivener (writing software). 

Part of my transformation involved getting back to my habit of tracking my work on spreadsheets.

I love my spreadsheets. They keep me motivated and on track. For this one I added an "Hours Editing" column and for my "Adjusted Average" word count calculation I counted one hour of editing, proofreading, and other book work as 500 words written. I'm trying to keep the Adjusted Average over 1,000 words per day.

A lot of my time has been spent on Bull and the Iron Band, book two in The Green Wyvern series I've just started. While I've been writing my new series, The Emerald Gate has been out with my beta readers and editors.

We're in the homestretch now. The final copies of The Emerald Gate have been sent out to the publishers and are available for pre-order now. The actual release date is April 23rd. It's just a little more than a week away.

I'm very excited for the publication of The Emerald Gate. It is the last book of The Orb and represents the end of a writing adventure that began my sophomore year in college over twenty years ago. No, not the end of all my writing! I have a lot of stories left to tell. It's the end of a major odyssey, though. I've written a complete, five novel, epic fantasy series. It feels good.

Emerald Gate Printout

Just printed out the finished draft of The Emerald Gate! Cat tail... because cats.

I will deliver it to my mom for a first proofread before putting it into book form and sending it off to my “Alpha Readers.” This is a change from my usual process. I’m tired of sending off manuscripts I think are well proofread, only to discover they’re riddled with errors. This time, I hit it with Grammarly and am sending it to my sharp-eyed mom, before my Alphas see it.

The Alphas will give it a good story (and writing) critique before I send it off to my Betas. The Betas will give me a “reader’s eye view” of the book, and will hopefully catch any grammar errors that have slipped through the process.

I’m hoping for a January 15th publication date. This is the fifth (and last) book in The Orb series!

New Mulan Movie

The teaser trailer for Mulan looks great! I love that they're not going to a 100% remake of the animated movie (like they did for Beauty and the Beast) and are instead trying to stay true(r) to the original Mulan legend. That means no Mushu the Dragon or song and dance routines. I know some people are upset about those changes, but if you want them, just watch the original animated movie. So far, I'm really looking forward to the movie.

Here's my one small complaint... and it's one I have with almost any movie that includes archery. Why can they NEVER get archery right? Bows strung backwards, incorrect technique, shooting three arrows at a time, ridiculous results... the archer in my cringes at what I see.

In my novels I try very hard to maintain the willing suspension of disbelief for my readers. That means keeping things realistic. WHAT? REALISTIC? BUT YOU WRITE FANTASY NOVELS!

The willing suspension of disbelief mean creating a world that follows rules. Yes, there are magic and monsters in my world. And I worked very hard to explain their existence and to give them a realistic framework they must operate under in that world. Breaking the framework (the "rules of the world") means losing that willing suspension of disbelief in the reader.

Not only do I try to be "realistic" in my creation of fantasy elements of the story, but I try my best to be realistic in my depiction of the non-fantasy elements. Things like technology, weapons, fighting styles, economics, politics, and the climate. In order to keep a reader of viewer absorbed in your story, you have to keep everything within the story consistent with the rules of the universe the story is set in.

When I started writing Eternal Knight I knew a lot about archery, but I didn't know everything I needed to know. So I started doing research. That research led to me taking up archery and even bow making.

The problem is that every time I see bows depicted in movies or books, I can help but to become an instant critic. This pulls me out of the moment and I lose my willing suspension of disbelief. I'm no longer absorbed in the story because my mind is cringing at what I'm looking at.

So what's wrong with Mulan's archery? (And, by the way, the most famous Hunger Games promo photo is far worse). 1) She's using a Mediterranean/European draw (drawing the string with her fingers) instead of an Asiatic draw (drawing with her thumb/thumb ring). 2) The Mediterranean draw only uses three fingers and you don't wrap your knuckles around the entire string. 3) The Mediterranean draw places the arrow on the other side of the bow. 4) Bad form. Raise that elbow!

I guess it's just not worth the expense to get archery right in movies. They figure that the number of people who will notice is not worth the effort of getting it right. But how much effort would it take to get it right? An hour of instruction with your actors would make a huge difference.

In conclusion:

1) I'm really looking forward to the movie.

2) I'm very happy with the changes from the animated movie.

3) The willing suspension of disbelief is really important to me.

4) Mulan (and every other movie) gets archery wrong. (Please tell me of a book or movie where they get it right).

5) I'll just cringe my way through the archery, because the movie looks like it's going to be great.

Wow, that really escalated! I thought I was going to write a paragraph about the new Mulan movie.

Have a great day!