Currently, Life in the North is sitting at around 4.6 stars on Amazon. Of the negative reviews we get, it can be split into two portions.
- the majority complain (and rightly so!) about spelling / grammar/ issues. That’s being resolved by hiring a proofreader who is working on Book 1 and probably will work on Book 2 (depending on final results of Book 1).
- this is is a more than fair complaint. While everything has been read over, there are certain things that my mixed background (studying English in Asia, the UK and Canada means I DON’T write American English and have some weird grammar usage at times) just doesn’t get picked up. Unfortunately, since I didn’t have the money to pay for the proofreader (and still haven’t gotten paid by Amazon!), it meant publishing without professional editing. So complaints on that is more than fair.
- Being a lefty / SJW / pushing gayness.
Firstly, I should point out that technically John is bisexual. I believe on the scale that is used, he’s technically only ‘bi-curious’. It might be better to call him xeno-curious since he is attracted to an alien, but eh.
Secondly, it’s kind of amusing really since I never went out of my way to write the character / story with that in mind.
When writing LitN, I knew when I introduced Roxley the character I wanted – a VERY hot, charismatic and aloof Dark Elf. That was the mental image I was pulling from when I created him.
It was only as I was writing the chapter that I started thinking about how John would react to running into Roxley and realised, yes, this was something that he would be interested in. The entire sub-plot of their romance was one of those things that happen when you write – when two characters interact and you suddenly finding yourself writing something that you didn’t expect.
It felt / feels right. And personally, as a writer, I love it when things like that happen. Characters become more than 2 dimensional creatures in my mind, they grow and add stories, personality, desires and it makes the characters ‘breathe’ in my mind. I know there are writers who are more disciplined, who have very specific things they want / need characters to do. That’s their process.
Mine has been and will always be a bit more organic. Writing this way means that these characters don’t bore me, and I find it more fun to write. I’ll admit, I do cut out scenes eventually (sometimes because those scenes are wrong or just don’t fit), but in this case, it did.
To be honest I don’t care for guy on guy action in books but I think you did a very good job of it and I think your right how he feels towards the dark elf feels natural and not forced at all. I’m very interested to see how his feeling for the elf develop in the next book. I am curious how age with the dark elf race works? Do they live for hundreds of years or did you take a different path with that?
Everyone who wants to (and can earn the Credits) can live for thousands of years. However, biologically, we burn out for a reason so naturally, the Dark Elves don’t really live much longer than humanity.
Few people are masters (mistress?) of spelling, grammar, writing and elocution including me, never mind a person who has English as a second language be it Canadian, British or American. For that matter second, third and fourth language our English is so different from one another. Be that as it may, you have done an excellent job with ‘Life in the North’ Please for my sake, delay book two as little as possible!