Great news, Fiction Fans! I just completed the first round of editing on Catgirl Roommate (again), and I plan to have the book completed and published by the end of the year!

The cover art is also coming nicely, and I look forward to sharing the finished product with you.

Also, as the title of this blog post mentioned, you now have a chance to get your name featured in the credits of Catgirl Roommate once it's published!

From today until the first day of December, everyone who pledges $1 or more on my Patreon channel will get a special place in Catgirl Roommate's credits.
​

If you want to support me, but you don't want your name to be featured, that's fine!

​After pledging, just send me a PM on Facebook or Twitter, tell me what your Patreon username is, and let me know that you don't want your name to be included in the credits.

​If you want your name in the credits to be different from your Patreon username, please let me know.

​Or, if you want to do something special for a friend, you could ask me to feature their name instead of yours (if you have their permission).
​

Just two:

1. If you make a pledge, and then withdraw it without paying, your name will not be featured. Pledge-dodgers don't get to be in credit sections. ;)

2. If you choose to have a pseudonym featured, it must not be anything vulgar, offensive, obscene, or abusive.
​

​Just click the button below, then once you're on the page, hit the orange "Become a patron" button in the upper right corner.
​

If you'd like to get early access to videos like this, as well as
songs, artwork, stories, lyrics, works in progress, and other goodies,
​please check out my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/StephanieOBrien
​

I FINALLY FRIKKIN' FIGURED IT OUT. *Takes a deep breath, and disengages capslock.*

There was something about me that bothered me for years. Something I had tried to surmount, with only inadequate fragments of success - until this week.

That something was my infuriating inability to record a good-sounding song.

This was especially frustrating when it came to songs like the topic of today's blog post. Decretum is a beautiful instrumental by Yuki Kajiura, for the amazing and heart-wrenching anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

I wanted to give words to Sayaka's poignant journey, so I sat down one day to write down lyrics that captured her desires, hopes and mistakes.

But the first several times I went to record my beautiful lyrics, darned if I could get my voice to cooperate. Notes that had sounded good as they vibrated through my jaw came out flat, dull and grainy when I played them on the computer.

It happened every single time I tried to record a song. And it bothered me for ages.

Why?! Why did my voice sound right when I sang, but not when I recorded it?

Then, one day, the penny finally dropped. I'll pause for a moment to let you enjoy the results (that's why you're here, right?) before elaborating.
​

So, what was this fallen penny of which I speak? There were a few of them, mostly in the form of questions I hadn't thought to ask myself before. Questions like...

​What if I just couldn't sing while listening to music?

What if my reflex not to talk over things and people was causing me to instinctively mute myself?

What if my untrained control over my voice required more concentration than I could give it while half of my focus was on the music?

What if my computer's sound system just plain couldn't handle playing audio and recording it at the same time?

And what if I tried recording the vocals while the music WASN'T playing?

Obviously, the timing of the lyrics could become an issue, but at that point, it was worth a shot.

So I plugged in my headset, activated my sound recorder, and went for it. I sang my heart out. I focused on hitting the right notes, and expressing the emotion of the song, instead of on matching the timing of the instrumentals.

Then, with high hopes, I saved the recording and hit "play"... 

And discovered that, while my voice will probably never be as good as KiyumiArashi's, and my microphone definitely leaves something to be desired, the sound quality was better than anything I'd ever recorded before.

For the first time ever, I could record a lyrical adaptation, and sincerely enjoy the results.

Unfortunately, as predicted, the timing was a bit off... so I decided to try another tactic.

This time, instead of playing the instrumentals on the computer, I played Decretum on my iPod while I recorded the song, and cranked the volume up high enough that I wouldn't reflexively sing softly in order to be able to hear the notes.

Sure enough, it worked - I got the timing right this time, AND the computer recorded the audio properly. Needless to say, I was pretty freaking happy, and I hope you enjoy the fruits of my little revelation.

​When I look from one of my novels to another, one of the things that stands out the most to me is the difference in the writing styles I used.

Some authors have a distinctive style that they stick with from one book to another, but I deliberately varied mine to suit the different genres and tones I was playing with.

Today, I'm going to take a look at the various writing styles I used, and reveal why I chose each one.

My Fugitive and Voice of a Silent Fugitive are both very poetic. I avoided making simple statements like "he struggled to swallow because this throat was dry", in favor of more descriptive phrases like "he swallows, straining against the barrier of his own dry throat".

I also departed from my usual habit of writing in the past tense and third person, and used a first person, present tense narrative style instead.

These two stories are both heavily laced with metaphors, reflecting the filters through which the characters view the world. They both have their own beliefs and mental narratives about the world and their place in it, and everything is shown through that lens.

Why I chose this writing style:

These two books are highly character-centric. While I didn't neglect the premise and plot, the characters are very much the core of these novels, and I wanted to fully immerse the reader in their minds, hearts and worldviews.

I wanted the books to have an eerie, haunting, stream-of-consciousness feel, with a bit of surreality mixed in.

This decision was inspired by a few different things. One was a review of Angel's Egg on THEM Anime Reviews, in which the reviewer commented on the surreal nature of the anime, the sparsity of dialogue, and its highly artsy nature.

It was one of those reviews that made me wonder how the creators pulled it off, while inspiring a feeling of "I want to try that."

Another source of inspiration - or perhaps I should say challenge - was the TV Tropes article on "Stylistic Suck".

The version of the article that I read back then noted that it can be difficult for a writer to create an alternate style that's as good as, or better than, the one they normally use. As a result, whenever they have a character who's a writer or an artist, that character's work is likely to be inferior to the art or writing of the overall story.

I decided to take that as a challenge. I wanted to see if I could write in a way that was a significant departure from my usual style - first person instead of third person, present tense instead of past tense, and far more poetic and metaphorical than my norm - and still make it good.

Did I succeed?

Well... most of my reviewers seem to think so.

On the opposite end of the spectrum from My Fugitive and Voice of a Silent Fugitive, you find Catgirl Roommate.

The writing style in Catgirl Roommate is much more quick and to-the-point than the Silent Fugitive series, except for the moments where it's time for character development to happen, and Sam turns introspective.

This style turned out to be a serious challenge to write, as it required as much poring over the descriptions to make them funny as the first two books did to make them poetic.

I also found, while editing my first draft, that I use the words "flail" and "flounder" a LOT... which should say something about the level of gracefulness that the cats who inspired the novel display. :P

Why I chose this writing style:

When I'm reading or watching something funny, and there's an interminable leadup between the jokes, I can end up getting bored, and thinking I came here to laugh - get on with it, would you?

So in this humor novel, I eschewed long descriptions for the most part,  and I made a point of making as many descriptions as possible funny rather than poetic.

Out of all the novels I've published or am soon to publish, Heroic Lies​ was definitely the most natural to write.

While doing a plot in medias res was a new challenge for me, the writing itself used my default style: a mixture of vivid imagery, funny and sarcastic dialogue, intense feelings, and a style that was more balanced between the quick and comical and the slow and poetic, leaning in one direction or another depending on the scene.

And, of course, it was in the third person and past tense, which is how I usually write.

No particularly in-depth or fancy decision-making went into choosing to write with my own style, but it certainly did make things easier.

You can read excerpts of all 4 books directly on this site, no downloads required.

Here are the links:

​My Fugitive 
Voice of a Silent Fugitive 
​Heroic Lies
​Catgirl Roommate

​Enjoy!

Whether they're trying to market themselves as educational, to support a viewpoint the writer holds, to enrich their audience, or simply to try to sound deep, many stories attempt to teach their audience a lesson, or to have a "moral of the story".

Some stories succeed brilliantly.

​But all too often, the narrative gets warped around the lesson to the point where it becomes unrelatable or unrealistic, or the lesson is so obvious that it makes people say "I already know that", which prevents the reader from giving it any further thought.

The movie Inside Out didn't do that. In fact, I'd say it's one of the best educational stories I've ever seen, mostly because it tricked me.

Here's what Inside Out did right, and how storytellers everywhere can use its secrets to improve their own writing:

In the early parts of Inside Out, the story convincingly portrayed Sadness as disruptive and incompetent.

She turned could-have-been-OK moments into tear-stained ordeals, went limp at times when she needed to take action, and generally seemed to make things harder for everyone around her.

She didn't seem to improve any situation she laid her hands on, and even though I already knew that all emotions are important messengers that should be paid attention to, I found myself getting annoyed with her, and wishing she'd stop messing things up.

Pay attention; this part is important.

The story didn't initially make it obvious that it was teaching a lesson.

In fact, it deliberately tried to make its audience have the reaction it would later encourage them not to have.

If the story had started out by saying "Paying attention to ALL of your emotions is important", I probably would have nodded and said "yup, got it", and never learned anything about myself from watching the movie.

But because it portrayed Sadness' seeming uselessness so convincingly, and in such a relatable way, it got a reaction. And the fact that I HAD that reaction at all told me that I had some beliefs that weren't quite aligned with what I knew about emotions.

It was a real eye-opener for me, both about myself, and about how to convey knowledge through storytelling.

I began to look closer at the way Inside Out was structured, and I made a list of the things that made the moral of the story so convincing and the lesson so profound.

​1. If you want to encourage your audience not to do something, have a character do it, with realistic results.

The consequences should flow naturally from the character's behavior, their environment, and the people around them.

Having the universe randomly and inexplicably dump on them for their misdeeds is sloppy and unrealistic, and won't help your audience to understand the real-world effects of the mistake you're pointing out. So keep it plausible and natural.

2. Don't make it immediately obvious that the character is making a mistake.

If your audience can guess the lesson right away, they'll probably think "I already know that", and start tuning out.

But if they can identify with the character's mindset or behavior, or at least think it's OK, it will be all the more jarring and eye-opening when you reveal the results of their choice.

3. Make the lesson a natural part of the story.

If the characters' behavior seems out of character, or you have to bend over backward and warp your plot to create the scenario that's used to teach the lesson, it will hurt the quality of both the lesson you're teaching and the story as a whole.

For best results, the lesson should be part of the natural flow of the story, not a distracting detour or a plot tumor.

4. Make it relatable.

The best lessons are the ones that match, or at least closely resemble, a scenario in which the audience could realistically find themselves.

If the moral of the story is something that could theoretically apply to the audience's lives, but the way in which the characters apply or experience it would NEVER happen in real life, it won't have as much impact.

5. Teach something that hasn't already been taught, or teach it in a new way.

​Unless your target audience is 5-year-olds, it's best to avoid having a moral that's so obvious that it makes people say, "come on, every decently-raised kid over the age of 6 knows that".

That said, if you can teach it in a new way, or give more in-depth, specific and useful insights than most stories give, even a basic and generic lesson can become deep and useful.

For example, most people know that bullying is wrong - not that that stops some people from doing it anyway. Therefore, having that as the moral of a story is a great way to be generic.

But if you portray your characters using effective and little-known methods to deter the bullies, and/or use the portrayal of the bully characters to give insights into WHY kids bully each other, then your readers might learn something that they didn't know before.

This is a great way to make an old lesson new, to add depth to your story, and to enlighten your readers at the same time.

6. Don't shoehorn a lesson in just for the sake of looking deep.

Maybe there isn't a moral to your story. Maybe it's just for fun. And that's fine.

​In my personal opinion, it's better to have a story with no lesson than to cram a lesson into the story just for the sake of having one.

​What mistakes have you seen storytellers make while trying to educate their audiences?

Do you have any tips for smoothly and effectively including lessons in your stories?

​I look forward to your comments.