Putting on Labels

pinterest: tempus regina

Well, I think you guys have been guessing for a sufficiently long time.  I hadn't meant to leave you dangling more than a week, but the days went and got busy again.  Phooey on them.

All in all, I think everyone did pretty well with the guesswork.  A few of you need to study some more,* but others were very nearly spot on.  A few, I admit, were harder than others; one snippet in particular you all got consistently wrong.  So consistently wrong that I almost feel compelled to move it to the story everyone insisted it was from.  Almost.  But, you know, it isn't going to happen.  No one was altogether right, though several of you did have some very good streaks in there: it was just those tricky ones that threw you off.

snippet #1

This one almost everyone got right: it's from The Running Tide.  If it's from a fellow's point-of-view and he's got blood on his hands, you're pretty safe if you bet on Tip Brighton.  As a point of interest, though, in this case it wasn't from punching anybody.

snippet #2

Another fairly straightforward one here, as the nurse rather gives the setting away.  Wordcrafter.  But I figured that since Tempus Regina is partially set in Victorian times, there was a slight chance you might go for that: I wasn't expecting any of the guesses for the Sea Fever books!

snippet #3

This bit was tricky, I'll admit, but it is in fact from The White Sail's Shaking.  It was Tip talking to Marta, even though looking at it now, I can see how you might think it was the Assassin talking to Regina.  The slight hesitation, however, is telling.  For me.  You know, being the writer and all.

snippet #4

Tempus Regina!  Very squarely Tempus Regina, and your first glimpse of the Fisherman.  

snippet #5

Only Writer got this one: it is also from Tempus Regina.  Nearly everybody guessed the Sea Fever books, which made me rather sorry to disappoint...

snippet #6

I'm sorry: I didn't give you much to go on, did I?  This is from Wordcrafter, though admittedly it could have gone many different ways.

snippet #7

Yes, I tossed you an easy one: Tempus Regina again.  You did ask for snippets from it...

snippet #8

I can't decide if it was the fact that this began with "wordlessly" or the bit about the desk, but nearly everyone went for Wordcrafter when it is actually The Running Tide.  Reading over it, I can see how you would think Justin King, but I'd still like to know if perspective was skewed due to the desk...

snippet #9

And possibly the hardest one, that only Joy got.  It's Tempus Regina once again - the only bit of the novel written from a male point-of-view.  Yes, I did do it to be mean.  I'm mildly apologetic.  I think personally I would have guessed Wordcrafter.

Well, that wasn't too bad!  I'd say you all got seventies or eighties at least.  Were there any you were particularly confident on, and have I now thrown you into confusion? 

*I'm sorry, but exams are coming up this week and I just can't help it.

What's It From?

pinterest: sea fever

I was thinking the other day that I haven't had any snippets to share with Scribbles' readers in a long time, which is a bummer - especially when people like Jenny and Mirriam are offering theirs up with pretty fair regularity.  (Never let it be said that writers aren't a petty lot!)  I think a few of you asked several months back if I would be able to show you anything from Tempus Regina. Unfortunately, as a story progresses I find myself with less and less I can share without spilling a whole lot of beans, and by the time I've reached the end of a novel I can't seem to dig up any bits at all.  This has been particularly true of Tempus Regina, as even characters' names are in many instances being kept under wraps.

So - no real snippets post.  However, after beating my brain around a little bit, I thought it might be fun to give you a sort of challenge.  Most of you have, from previous snippets and general information, at least a hazy idea of the plot and voice of each of my novels.  What I want to see is whether or not you have a good enough idea to be able to match any snippet I share with its novel.  It's something of an academic exercise for me: I want to know how much light I've shed on these books and how different the style is from one to another, or, conversely, how constant my voice is. But, too, you wanted snippets.  So I shall give you snippets.

They will be from my major novels: Wordcrafter, The White Sail's Shaking and The Running Tide (these are essentially one book, so if you want you can say Sea Fever; kudos if you can guess which!), and Tempus Regina.  I won't list any from The Soldier's Cross, partially because I believe most of you have read it, partially because I wrote it four years ago and I'm pretty sure the stylistic difference would be too obvious.  I'm not sharing one each, so there will be some overlap, but I also won't throw in anything random just to confuse you.  It's a straight matching game.

snippet #1

Instinctively [he] looked down, uncurling both fists to show the bloody palms underneath; he had been too numb since the beginning of the engagement to notice that he had ground the blunt stubs of his fingernails through the surface. He covered them again. “I’m alright,” he said, and the words came out in a dry rasp.

snippet #2

Squinting up into the face of the nurse, who had fallen from chatter into nondescript humming, [he] parted his lips and said, “I’m mad, aren’t I?”

The nurse started, and then considered him a long moment with a furrow between her freckled brows. She took him in, and weighed him, and then seemed to have a good long think before pronouncing judgment. “No,” she said simply, “I don’t think so. They would have told me if you were."

snippet #3

“Well,” he said, not very graciously, “I suppose we’ll have to keep you. But I wish—I wish you hadn’t gotten yourself into this mess.”

snippet #4

“You came in haste,” he went on, eyeing her sidelong, working back and forth, and back and forth, the great silver ring on his left hand. The fire made its inset stone shine out ragingly blue—made the flaw in it stark, and cast up a reflection on the man’s jaw. “You came in haste and now you hesitate, and so I suppose it is bad news. Eh?”

snippet #5

He lifted his narrow shoulders helplessly. “I did not mean to provoke you. Only, it struck me that you looked lonely. You looked as though you wanted company. You looked,” he added, having to raise his voice against the roar of an explosion down below, “the way I felt myself.”

“Did I?” she hummed, sidestepping. “I had no notion of that.”

snippet #6

“[He] was asking for you, you know. I think he was afraid you might come back, and what a pity! here you are.”

snippet #7

She released him, drawing herself rigid to avoid a fall. Her legs were going…going… She made it as far as the chair, sat down, had time enough to thank God it had a back, and then felt the whole of the room slide into darkness.

snippet #8

Wordlessly he crossed the room and hauled himself up on the corner of the desk, not quite able to hold back the shivering sigh that hissed out at the relief of letting his bad leg dangle, of feeling his bones ease with the creaking of an old man’s limbs.

snippet #9

But the men, the guard with the nose-ring and another [he] knew only vaguely, did not summon him. They stood a while, shoulder to shoulder, watching [him] while he put his back up against a wall and watched them in return; then they came down from the threshold together, the first man spun his javelin, and the second drove the door back into its socket. The light was cut short; the half-dark returned, warm now with the presence of two new bodies, glittering as the spear-heads turned.

“What’s this?” [he] breathed. “What are the two of you about?”