Welcome to the book tour for Uncharted by Justine Alley Dowsett and Murandy Damodred.
Title: Uncharted
Author Name: Justine Alley Dowsett & Murandy Damodred
Page Count: 344 pgs.
Genre(s): Fantasy, Romance, Historical, Comedy, Adventure, Swashbuckling, Polyamoury
Release Date: April 17, 2017
Follow the Tour:
About the Book:
Fated to be a Priestess of Saegard, Meredith dreams of leading a normal life with a family and a home of her own, something she’ll never have if she swears her life to the Order. A chance encounter with a stranger in the sacred Celestial Chamber sends her previously well-ordered life into a tailspin of adventure and mayhem as she is blamed for the theft of a legendary artifact.
Now a fugitive, Meredith must join forces with Captain Reginald Lawrence, the son of the man who initially brought her to the Temple, and his enigmatic business partner, the charming yet at times infuriating, Grey Rhodes, to find the Celestial Bowl and clear her name. From the cosmopolitan capital of Saegard to the coast of Ismera and back again, Meredith’s journey will reveal the true nature of her past, present, and ultimately, her future.
Guest
Post: Writing Uncharted Together by Justine Alley Dowsett
Murandy Damodred and I wrote our fantasy /
romantic comedy novel, Uncharted,
together. This is not our first co-written novel. In fact, it’s our fifth, so
we’ve got a system worked out for how we do it.
First we split up the characters:
Since we write primarily romance, our
stories have at least a male protagonist and a female protagonist, so for
Murandy and I what works best is to divide the characters by gender. Murandy
tends to write the female main character or characters and I write the male
ones. This way, we split up the work and while writing, it’s easier and more
interesting to have conversations with each other.
For Uncharted,
that’s Meredith as the protagonist and Reginald and Grey as the lead male
characters.
We discuss the story and the world and
decide where we want to start:
Generally speaking, any planning we do as
far as coming up with the concept of the story and who the characters are has
been done before this point, but now that we know who’s who, we can flesh
things out. We bounce ideas off of one another to decide where the story begins
and where the inciting incident is.
In Uncharted,
we started with the prologue. We wanted to show the moment that sets Meredith
on her journey, as that journey was going to be central to the plot.
I set the scene:
As the narrator, it’s my job to describe
the setting and to set the scene for the character(s).
From the prologue of Uncharted:
Noiseless on slippered feet, Meredith darted swiftly
to the oversized double doors of the Celestial Chamber. She glanced once
quickly over each shoulder to make sure she was still alone in the Great Hall
before she gave the wide gilded handle a tug and felt the latch give way. With
a grimace of effort, she pulled the heavy door open just enough to allow
herself to squeeze into the chamber beyond.
Expecting darkness, moonlight dazzled her senses. The
silvery light pooled in the middle of a wide and perfectly round central
platform, serving to bring focus to the reason for this room’s existence: an
ethereal-looking blue bowl lined with silver and filled with glittering water.
The Celestial Bowl beckoned to Meredith from its place
on the solitary stone pedestal in the centre of the chamber. The sound of
rushing water from the underground river that surfaced briefly in this room
filled her ears as she let the heavy door fall quietly shut behind her.
Murandy decides what her character is thinking, doing,
or saying:
In response to the information I’ve given
her in my description of the scene, Murandy decides what happens next based on
her character’s motivations.
I shouldn’t be in here, a small voice
in the back of her mind reminded her, even as she took a step toward the
glittering artifact. It’s only that I just can’t help but question if
this life is for me. I want a family, a home…and a husband. I owe the Order for
what they’ve done for me, but if I stay here and become a Priestess, I can’t
have any of those things.
If I can just have a look at my destiny tonight,
then maybe the path I should take will become clear. Besides, she countered
the nagging sound of her conscience, if I wait
until tomorrow’s ceremony to see my future, it will be too late to
change it.
I let her know how the world or the
characters around her react:
Her decision made, Meredith closed the distance
between herself and the bowl with purpose, crossing the small, railless stone
bridge spanning a gap over the rushing water beneath. As she neared the bowl,
she kept her eyes fixated on the calm, reflective surface of the water within,
not wanting to chance missing even the slightest bit of whatever vision it
might grant her. Moonlight glinted off the silver interior of the bowl, making
the room seem brighter than it actually was. As if in a trance, she lost herself
in the beauty of the dancing light and that was when she saw it.
A man, no…only his torso, wearing a dark grey suit
coat buttoned over his left breast. He stood with pride in his bearing, but
beyond the grey coat and a single purple flower in his lapel the image cut off
at the neck and didn’t show his face. Meredith leaned forward, trying to get a
better angle.
The vision, if that’s what it was, continued and she
saw herself from behind, unmistakeable with her lengthy waves of chocolate
brown hair cascading over the hood of her light grey Priestess cloak. The
vision of herself flung herself at this man and his arms reached up to hold
her. Engrossed now, Meredith leaned directly over the bowl, determined to get a
glimpse at the face of her mystery man when the image in the silver-lined water
abruptly disappeared.
And so it goes:
Back and forth, the action and dialogue
unfold as control of the scene is passed between us. And when one scene ends,
we repeat the process, deciding where to start, setting the scene, adding
thoughts, actions and dialogue, and responding. This is what works for Murandy
and I, but there are lots of ways to co-write and divide the work. The trick is
to work with someone you can rely on, trust, and generally get along with because
co-writing takes a lot of compromise and being on the same page.
Read an Excerpt:
The door to her ‘room’ on The Clover was
just as she remembered it, although it seemed much smaller now that she was
older. No larger than a water closet, the addition on the backside of the
Captain’s Quarters that had been built for her was still there as though, after
all this time, it was waiting for her return.
Reaching for the small brass ring that
served as a handle, Meredith pulled the half-sized door open and was dismayed
to find that there was no way she’d fit inside the small space. It was filled
to the brim with all manner of junk. Tackle boxes, rope, a crate filled with
empty bottles, and a pile of soiled linen; her ‘bedroom’ had been repurposed
into the ship’s dumping ground.
This
is my room. For
no reason that she could fully articulate, Meredith felt indignant. Even if it’s been more than ten years, it
was built for me and I’m taking it back! The irrational desire to re-stake
her claim on something that hadn’t been hers for a decade took over and she
grabbed the nearest thing to her and turned with purpose, ready to hoist a
crate filled with empty liquor bottles over the railing and into the water
below.
“Whoa, hold on just a minute!” Captain
Laurent’s son grabbed hold of her arm before she could gain the height she
needed to throw the crate overboard.
His noble friend, minus his navy suit
jacket now, stood just behind him, almost as if staying out of her range. His
white shirt was nearly clean, though she could see where brownish grey stew coloured
the frills of his collar. Meredith felt only slightly guilty about her little
‘outburst’. He deserved it…he’s a jerk.
“No,” she stated, imploring him to listen,
“you destroyed my room and I’m taking it back. It’s the only home I ever really
had.”
“Your…room?” A light went on behind the
young Captain’s eyes. “That’s why it had a bed in there…I always thought it was
a dog house. Didn’t know why my dad would’ve wanted a dog aboard a ship, but he
was always doing all sorts of foolish things.”
“Like taking in strays?” Meredith demanded,
arching a brow disdainfully in his direction. “Is that what you’re implying?”
“Ah, no!” Reginald’s eyes went wide, his
hands going up in a defensive fashion. “No, of course not! My dad was always
winning strange sorts of stuff in poker tournaments. He was gambler.”
“Are you now implying that I was bought or
won in a card game, like some sort of…child slave?”
His eyes bugged even further out of his
head, if that was possible, and his cheeks flushed. “Ah…no…I mean…you weren’t,
were you?”
“Of course not!”
“So now that we’ve established that you
aren’t a stray dog or a child slave,” the noble interjected in a no-nonsense
tone of voice, his grey eyes dark, “do you mind telling us who you are and what
you’re doing here?”
Meredith fought the urge to laugh because
the bit of mushy carrot in his hair was so at odds with his expression.
“I am here because I need passage out of
Saegard. I fell in the water, got drenched, then walked here during the night.
I was cold, wet, and badly bruised…from my fall. No one was around on deck, so
I thought I would warm up inside. I took my clothes off to dry so I wouldn’t
catch a cold and I used the silks because they were all I could find. That’s
when I fell asleep. And I would have told you all of that, if you weren’t being
such a jerk!”
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Meet the Authors:
Justine Alley Dowsett
From obtaining her BA in Drama at the University of Windsor to becoming an entrepreneur in video game production and later, publishing, Justine Alley Dowsett's unswerving ambition has always led her to pursue her dreams. She lives in Windsor, Ontario and dedicates her time to writing and publishing fiction novels. When not focusing on growing her business, she enjoys role-playing with friends and developing new ideas to write about.
Murandy Damodred
With a background in Drama and Communications from the University of Windsor, Murandy Damodred enjoys fantasy fiction with strong romantic subplots. She is an avid role-player and is happiest when living vicariously through her characters. Though she'd rather think of herself as the heroine of her next novel, in the real world she is an expert in sales and management living in Windsor, Ontario.
Connect with the Authors:
Enter the Giveaway:
Thank you so much for having Justine, Murandy, and Uncharted on your blog today!
ReplyDeleteYou're more than welcome, Amber! Looking forward to jumping on board with Justine and Murandy's newest book! Cheers!
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