In this issue…
News from the Typewriter
Behind the Hedges
Adventures in Dice
Bilbo Waggin’s Corner
News from the Typewriter
When the full power of the Ealdra is revealed, Jack must choose between saving his nation and saving his friends. The electrifying finale to the Descendants of Robin Hood series arrives June 25th, 2024!
Book 3: Son of Lightning is racing towards launch! My amazing beta readers helped me finalize any big edits, and the manuscript is now in the hands of my editor. I’m so excited to be working with the lovely Elizabeth Thurmond again! She has a background as an editor at Disney Hyperion, working on books like Rick Riordan’s Kane Chronicles.
I’ve begun drafts on a cover, so look for that reveal in the next few weeks. In addition to the paperback cover, I’m working on a series of specialty covers for a hardback release! You’ll be notified of any updates here on my Substack first. ☺️ To make sure these updates don’t disappear into the ether, hit “reply” on this email with the words “Son of Lightning” to mark them as not-spam.
Behind the Hedges
Through my editing process, there’s a slew of websites and books I consult to bring out the best in my books. Here’s some of my favorites. Click on the name of each resource to access it.
Editing Resources for Writers:
The Emotions Thesaurus. This book is a massive encyclopedia about different emotions your characters may be experiencing in a scene (fear, despair, hope, peace, etc). Each emotion is accompanied with a list of physical sensations, internal sensations, and thought patterns the character might be experiencing. It also gives a tracking list of other emotions the character may escalate or de-escalate through. This book really helps me get into my character’s head and give tangible consequences to the emotion they’re feeling.
The Urban Setting Thesaurus and Rural Setting Thesaurus. One of the bigger edits I made based on beta reader feedback is including more description into my scenes. I tend to leap right into the action or the dialogue, and forget to include details about the settings. Both these thesauruses help me keep my scenes very grounded. They include huge lists of different things the characters could be seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting, or feeling; as well as lists of conflicts that could occur if you're looking for further ways to flesh out a setting. This is a resource I’ve only recently discovered during my Son of Lightning edits and I love it!
Writing with Color. This website is a GOLD MINE for character description that referenced a lot to detail my characters’ appearances. 🤎
Related Words Search. This is my go-to website when the word I’m thinking of is not quite right. I know there’s a better word somewhere close!
Adventures in Dice
I’m a bit Critical Role fan, so of course I’ve been following the new Daggerheart TTRPG system. My most recent rabbit hole I went down is around the dice mechanics in Daggerheart. Now hang on tight, because this is about to get real nerdy real quick…
So, Daggerheart uses a 2d12 system (two 12-sided dice). Anytime a character wants to do something that has a chance of failure (attack an enemy, climb a tree, avoid a trap, etc)., the player rolls 2d12. If the total number is above a certain threshold, the character succeeds.
Now, I like 2d12 compared to Dungeons & Dragon’s d20 system (one 20-sided die) because the results of 2d12 rolls are on a bell curve:
whereas the results of 1d20 rolls are completely random:
This means players are more likely to roll mid-range numbers on 2d12, and the extremely high or extremely low rolls are more rare. That’s the one problem I have with the 2d12 system. Critical successes (rolling a 24) and critical failures (rolling a 2) are a lot of fun in the game, and I miss the thrill.
In a d20 system like D&D uses, the chance of a critical success or critical failure is 5%. In a 2d12 system like Daggerheart uses, the chance of a critical success or critical failure drops to less than 1%. Daggerheart implemented an advantage system where you essentially roll 3d12 and choose the two highest results to add together for your total roll. (There’s a little more to it than that, but for the purposes of this example it doesn’t super matter).
This advantage system does indeed make your chances of rolling high much greater, but the chance of rolling a critical success stays the same.
I do think critical success and failures in the D&D system are slightly too frequent, making them less impactful, so ideally I’d love to land these numbers around 3% of rolls. But how do I do that without doing a bunch of math or rolling a handful of dice?
Here’s the system I came up with…
I’ll give advantage and disadvantage to players more frequently in my games (about 20 times a session, compared to our normal 5 times). When a player gets advantage, they’ll roll 4d12 and take the two highest results. What you end up with is an increased chance of rolling high numbers AND the chance of rolling a critical success goes up to 4%.
This means about once a session a critical success or critical hit will occur! I get the best of both worlds, and my players don’t have to do a whole bunch of math in the middle of big story beats.
P.S. This dice calculator is a lot of fun if you want to poke around at numbers: https://dice.clockworkmod.com
Bilbo Waggins’s Corner
Here’s Bilbo in his raincoat, watching the rain from his cozy little spot under an umbrella.
Finally…
If you read Guardian of the North or Curse of the Arrow, please leave a review on Goodreads or your favorite retailer, it helps me out so much. 💚🦔