Audio version of Servant available Aug 2nd!
August 2nd is the date! The listing is up on Audible now. It appears the preview will be available until it goes live. Very excited about this.

August 2nd is the date! The listing is up on Audible now. It appears the preview will be available until it goes live. Very excited about this.

On Wednesday, at 8:53 PM, I finished the first draft of Assassin.
It clocked in at just over 97,000 words, making it the biggest book in the Drovers series. Prey was 73,000 words, Outlaws 68,000, and Sura 84,000.
More importantly, Assassin finishes the story arc that began with Prey. I may return to Ferran and company for another arc in the future, but I wanted these books to have a real, satisfying ending. And now they have one, if only in first-draft form.
Nobody but me sees the first draft of what I write. For good reason.
I’ll let it sit for a week or two so I can come back to it cold and discover that I’ve changed people’s clothing mid-scene, used the word sit six times in three paragraphs, and committed other literary crimes.
Draft two goes to my beta readers, who report where they were excited, bored, confused, or questioned my grasp of reality.
Draft three addresses those issues and gets a thorough line edit, even though I’ve found the best way to discover spelling errors is to think you’ve found them all and then publish your book. At that point, the devils come out of hiding and begin dancing around on the page.
Dixon Leavitt, the artist who created the previous three covers, will be doing this one as well.
If all goes well, Assassin should be out for the holidays.
One of my favorite discoveries in the book was a lad named Weff.
I didn’t set out to write Weff. I didn’t know he existed. But I was up on the hill behind my house on one of my writing walks, walking and talking to myself about the story, when he suddenly appeared.
Broniss has streets paved with cobblestones, and the queen wants them kept clean. The problem is that horses, oxen, and other beasts have an unfortunate habit of leaving things behind.
So the city has children assigned to territories whose job is to keep those streets clear.
They’re called muck runners.
And Weff is one with an enterprising mind.
That’s one of the delights of writing for me. Sometimes you plan a character for months. Sometimes you’re walking along a dirt road talking to yourself and a manure boy shows up. And suddenly he must have a part in the tale.
While you’re waiting for the big wrap up, if you’re looking for an audiobook, I highly recommend Tim Curry’s reading of Garth Nix’s Sabriel. It’s a terrific fantasy to begin with, but Curry’s performance makes it even better. His rendition of Mogget is so enjoyable you may find yourself listening a second time.
If you’ve heard an audiobook performance you absolutely loved, tell me. I’m always looking for the next good listen.
Until next time,
John
Interview with The Man Monday nightDungeon Crawlers Radio interviews The Man Monday, March 8th at 10:30 PM MTN. You can listen live or to the archive they’ll post to their site. All brought to you by UtahFM. Malak and Revan are great guys. I had a blast with them.
New page on writing facts & figures in the On Writing section.
CURSE OF A DARK GOD is moving along. You should see the progress bar move along quite a bit this week.
This is a cheap day-long writers conference and looks like it’s going to be another great one. I’ve highlighted what I’ll be doing in red. I’ll be making adjustments to the HOW TO WRITE A STORY THAT ROCKS presentation for things learned at LTUE.
Here’s their website. That night I’ll probably be attending the Whitney Awards Gala which is also being held down in Happy Valley, Utah.
DATE: Saturday April 24 2010
8-9 a.m. Registration
9-9:10 Welcome (Plenary)
KEYNOTES
9:10-9:40 Keynote #1 Ginger Churchill, “What I Wish I had Known as a Beginning Writer”
9:40-10:10 Keynote #2 Ally Condie, “My Journey to National Publication”
10:10-10:40 John D. Brown, “Aiming for National Publication”
INTRODUCTIONS of editors and authors
10:40-11:05 EDITORS: Derk Koldewyn, Granite NAME
AUTHORS: Caleb Warnock, Linda Jefferies, Shannon Guymon
11:05-11:20 15-minute break
11:20-noon BREAKOUT ONE
Upstairs room “Crafting the Novel” with Shannon Guymon, John D. Brown
Downstairs One “Finding and Working With an Agent” with Ginger Churchill, Ally Condie, Caleb Warnock
Downstairs Two “Taking Your Questions about Publishing” with Deseret Book and Granite Publishing
noon-1 LUNCH “Mix and Mingle with Authors and Editors”
1-1:40 BREAKOUT TWO
Conference One Derk Koldewyn of Deseret Book “What Deseret Book is looking for now”
Conference Two Ginger Churchill “How to Write and Publish Picture Books”
Upstairs room John Brown, “How to Write a Story That Rocks Part 1: First Principles & Story Concept”
Office room Caleb Warnock “10 Things Every Writer Should Know about Copyright”
Downstairs One Granite Publishing “What Granite is looking for now”
Downstairs Two Ally Condie “Writing Young Adult Fiction”
1:40-1:50 Ten-minute break
1:50-2:30 BREAKOUT THREE
Upstairs Room John Brown, “How to Write a Story That Rocks Part 2: Character”
Conference Two Ginger Churchill “Genres of Children’s Books, from Board Books to YA Novels”
Conference One Derk Koldewyn of Deseret Book “National Publication with Shadow Mountain”
Office room Caleb Warnock “How to Write the Query Letter”
Downstairs One Granite Publishing “Publishing Options with Granite”
Downstairs Two Shannon Guymon “How to Write Romance”
2:30-2:40 Ten-minute break
2:40-3:20 BREAKOUT FOUR
Upstairs Room John Brown, “How to Write a Story That Rocks Part 3: Plot”
Conference Two Ginger Churchill “How to be a Writer and a Mother Too”
Conference One Linda Jefferies “Writing Poetry”
Office room Caleb Warnock “Write a Synopsis? I’d Rather Gouge My Eyes Out!”
Downstairs One Ally Condie “Succeeding as an LDS author”
Downstairs Two Shannon Guymon “Writing Nonfiction”
3:20-3:30 Ten-minute break
3:30-4:10 BREAKOUT FIVE
Upstairs Room John Brown, “Writing Scenes: The Basic Units of a Novel”
Conference Two Ginger Churchill “Querying Agents and Publishers”
Conference One Linda Jefferies “Publishing Poetry”
Office room Caleb Warnock “Okay, You Were Rejected – Why, and What to Do Now”
Downstairs One “How to form a critique group that works”
Downstairs Two Shannon Guymon “Succeeding as an LDS Author”
4:10-4:20 PRIZE GIVEAWAYS, GOODBYE
REVISED (MAY CHANGE)
On Friday night I’m going to be part of a panel on RULES FOR WRITING MAGIC, and then I’ll be presenting VIVID & CLEAR to a bunch of SFF romancers. On Saturday I’ll be following that up with a presentation on STORY TURNS. Every time I present folks ask for the presentations. So instead of making them wait until I get home, I’ll just post them now.
Enjoy!
Some thoughts on inventing magic to go along with Friday’s panel.
Presentation slides: Vivid and Clear v2
Presentation slides: Story Turns v2
And here is the fine car chase clip from the Story Turns presentation.
BSCreviews just published my guest blog “How to Get Ideas: Talk to Cows.” For those of you unfamiliar with the genesis of Servant of a Dark God, you’ll want to check it out.
Tia Nevitt writes the Fantasy Debut blog where she reviews “All Debut Fantasy . . . (almost) All the Time.” She’s posted a review of Servant of a Dark God that points out some interesting differences between this epic fantasy and others. She is also one for whom the family aspect of the story resonated. In fact, she’s the first that’s really highlighted it. She has an interview with me coming out later this week where I discuss that aspect of the novel. Finally, I really like how she captured one of the core issues of the story below. I wish she’d been there when I was sending my queries off to agents and editors 🙂
Servant of a Dark God by John Brown is one of those novels that I pick up with some reluctance, not really thinking it’s for me, but then I end up enjoying it thoroughly.
Mr. Brown has taken a very different approach with Servant of a Dark God. This is an epic fantasy that does not involve epic journeys, recent calamities or long-term character arcs. It does involve long-term lies; the kind of lies that are told over such a long period of time that they are thought of as truths. Full review of Servant of a Dark God.
The United Authors Association is holding a fiction writing conference October 24th in Springville, Utah, and it’s free to the public!
The conference schedule has some great presentation topics on it by authors who are delighting a lot of readers as well as an editor, agent, and a magician.
I’m going to be presenting on the fundamental core of story–“Scene and Sequel”–expect we’ll be replacing those two terms right off that bat. Hope to see you there.