Interview with Author Sofi Laporte

Dragon Soul Press sat down with Author Sofi Laporte for an interview.

What gives you inspiration for your books?

I write across genres, but mainly YA, paranormal and romance. My stories usually have “a sprinkle of magic”, a touch of magic realism. I basically collect story ideas from every day-life, from the mundane, and sprinkle some magic on top.

What inspired Loreley, my story in Sea of Secrets Anthology, was a childhood memory. Specifically: the German song Loreley that my grandmother used to sing to me on her mandoline. When I thought about what to write for this anthology, the melody suddenly came to me. I actually heard the music. I knew then that I had to write about the Loreley legend.

Chestnut Woman was inspired by a real person, a neighbor in Vienna. She had a gossipy nature, a strident voice and knew everything about everyone. It was unbelievable what she knew. What if, it occurred to me, underneath this garish façade she is someone entirely different? Maybe someone magical? This is how Mrs Schmidt was born.

To sum up, what inspires me: music, real people, places I’ve lived and visited, childhood memories. Somehow it all magically comes together to form a story. This is why I love writing!


Arthrapax. The precocious cat who is in reality a dragon. And not just any dragon: Morgana’s side-kick, her pet dragon! He’s modeled on my own cat, who has the same sassiness.  Arthrapax is a side character in Chestnut Woman in Sea of Secrets Anthology, but he really deserves his own book.


All this marketing! I never thought I’d have to take a crash course on marketing just because I wanted to write stories and share them with other people.

Any website or resources that have been helpful to you as a writer?

So many! 10 minute novelist Facebook group:, 365 writing challenge group which is a sub-group of 10 minute novelists and which taught me to put butt-in-chair and write every day:; Helping writers become authors blog and books by K.M Weiland: Special shout-out to Inkslinger’s Den, a Facebook group by Brenda Littau with the best how-to videos on everything a writer needs to know: My favorite books: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott and The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I also read a ton in my genres; mainly YA, romance and paranormal.

Have you thought about joining with another author to write a book?

Yes, it sounds like fun! I might like to try that one day. Some of my favorite books were co-authored, like Holly Black and Cassandra Clare’s Magisterium series; or the Beautiful Creatures series by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.

But first I would like to focus on my own books.

What do you think about the ebook revolution?

I’m pro-technology so I support that. I mean, who doesn’t enjoy this: click and voilà, there’s your book! Instant gratification! In my “other” life I work as a librarian and a teacher, so I speak from experience that e-readers help dyslexic children with their reading comprehension. Also reluctant readers can be enticed to reading via e-reading programs. There are some truly great reading programs and Apps out there. Additionally, ebooks are a blessing for elderly people, because they can enlarge the font with a click. I know some people prefer ebooks over paperbacks because the printed font is simply too small. Yet we need not fear that traditional books will become extinct because of ebooks. A few days ago there was an article in our local newspaper saying that the printed book has “outlived its own death” – referring to the ebook revolution and the fear that, as a consequence, paperbacks will become obsolete. They won’t. Independent bookshops are on the rise again. As for myself, when it comes down to choosing between reading an e-book or paperback: it really depends on how impatient I am to read the book. If I have to wait a long time for the book to arrive, I will just read the e-book. Otherwise I usually prefer the paperback over the ebook. I do love paper, the touch and smell of it. And I adore bookshops! I have wonderful memories of standing in line early in the morning at a bookshop in Västerlanggatan in Stockholm to get my hands on the newest Harry Potter book. You don’t get to have those wonderful memories with the instant gratification of e-books.

Have you written any other books that are not published?

Ahem. There might be a whole drawer full of manuscripts somewhere …

What tactics do you have when writing?

I do both, really, though I lean toward pantsing. I outline only to discover that my characters have totally different ideas, and suddenly I find myself happily pantsing away. When I start out pantsing a story, however, I inevitably get stuck sooner or later, and then I need to retrace my story and outline. Too detailed an outline doesn’t work for me, however. I find that restrictive.

What is the toughest criticism given to you as an author?

“This is boring” – at school, response by a classmate. Ouch. The positive side of this experience is that it now motivates me to learn the craft of good writing: it made me aware that we tell stories to our readers, not only to ourselves. And readers want to be entertained, gripped and drawn into the story. Learning to write like this is what I am currently obsessing about.

Where can we find you online? 

Please visit me at my website where I blog about reading, writing and exploring castle ruins (my particular hobby) – with a sprinkle of magic! Also on Instagram and Twitter.

Demystifying Plotting Part 2 of 2

In the last post, I discuss how plotting is not as hard as it sounds so long as you don’t make it as hard. The whole point of it is to just jot down ideas and points of each part of the story. Don’t worry about cohesion, theme, or twists. Just write down each piece and then move on.

In this lengthy post, we’ll run through an example.

I write down my overall plot: A knight journeys across the lands to slay the dragon who has kidnapped the princess.

See? Already, you know how this story starts in the beginning and the end. At the beginning, the dragon comes, lays the smack down on the castle, snatches Princess Peach, and then absconds with her. The king sends the knight to go kill it and get his daughter back. At the ending, we know the knight is fighting the dragon, kills it, and takes Princess Peach back home to live happily ever after. But what’s in the middle? Umm … well, he journeys there, and that’s what we need to figure out. Second, let’s back up a little bit. Is there anything we can do to set the story up before the dragon attacks? For example, does the dragon have to be the be-all, end-all of villains?

Yes, we can!

Let’s have a dragon goddess unleash a terrible dragon upon the mortals. She does this because at one time, the lesser races worshipped her and the dragons. She desires those Ye Olde Tymes to return. Also, it comes at a moment when humanity, along with the other races are ready to war with one another.

Chapter 1. The Dragon Goddess summons the Black Dragon. Commands her most powerful minion to kidnap the princess.

Chapter 2. The King argues with the Elven and Dwarven delegates about a potential treaty. The delegates angrily deride the King. They leave. The reader knows war is coming as already skirmishes have been fought.

Chapter 3. The Outlying Fortress that is guarding the Wastelands is destroyed by a flock of dragons. The Black Dragon flies toward the kingdom.

Chapter 4. The dragon attacks the castle, captures Princess Peach, kills the Queen trying to save her daughter.

Chapter 5. The Aftermath. The king mourns his wife, and summons the most fabled knight of all the lands to kill the dragon.

Chapter 6, 7, 8, 9 …. uhh …. stuff …

Chapter 25. The knight fights the dragon before the Gate to the Dragon Goddess’ realm is opened.

Chapter 26. The mortal races are united, treaties are signed, and the knight and the princess get married.

Okay, now we have an epic fantasy on our hands. Already, we have five chapters at the beginning and he haven’t introduced our hero yet! Some blogs will say that’s not a good idea. Right now, we don’t care. What we care about is just getting all twenty-six chapter ideas out. The fine-tuning comes later. The plot twists come later.

What do we do next? Well, we need to introduce the knight in the next chapter.

Chapter 6. The knight is at a tavern, drunk, mourning his dead wife and youngest child of six years from an orc raid while he was off seeking treasure. He argues with his surviving son, who leaves him to join the war against the elves and dwarves.

Chapter 7. A servant summons the knight to the king’s castle. The knight tells him to eff off. Dragonkin, along with other monsters, attack the village and end up killing his son and most of the village before being driven back by the knight’s awesome fighting skills. The knight resolves to fight.

Now, the knight has entered the arena and our story is shaping up. We know he has to go to the castle, get his quest from the king, then journey to the Dragon’s land for the final battle. We think about it a little more and realize the knight needs resources in order to fight. Let’s pull out all the stops—magic, people, treasure, everything. The knight needs it all and he needs allies in order to do it! Let’s start with an expression, “Sometimes, politics makes strange bedfellows.” So, we’re focusing on the knight building an army to fight the dragon.

Chapter 8. The knight receives his commission at the castle. He travels north into monster-infested lands and meets with the cabal of wizards. They will aid the knight on condition on getting the dragon parts solely for their research. He agrees.

Chapter 9. The Dragon Goddess comes to the elves, promises them they will be favored servants. They agree, but some in the Council do not like the idea. The Goddess goes to the dwarves, they rebuff her.

Chapter 10. The dragons attack en masse on the dwarven holds. They are wiped out, but the dragons are spent.

Chapter 11. The knight travels to the barbarian lands of the Bear People. They love battle and one bear is worth ten human men. However, they live in squalor in lands fouled by magic. The knight negotiates a deal for the Bear People to migrate south to better arable land. They armor up and march.

Chapter 12. The Dragon Goddess delivers an ultimatum to the King and the rest of humanity. Bow on bended knee or be wiped out starting with the princess. The king refuses. It’s on.

Chapter 13. The knight, Bear People, and wizards encounter their first major battle against the elves. The elves are defeated, but the knight is severely wounded and may not live.

Chapter 14. Some of the elves throw in their lot with the knight in exchange for assistance to usurp the existing Council. The knight agrees.

Chapter 15. The knight and his army is repelled by the dragonkin and some guardian dragons.

Chapter 16. The knight quests to find an ancient sword and shield to bolster the power of his army.

Chapter 17. The knight slays the lich guarding the powerful artifacts, but is betrayed by the wizards. He is rescued some Bear People and elves.

Chapter 18. The Dragon Goddess appears before the knight and offers a deal with him. Serve her and she will make him a king. He refuses.

Chapter 19. Battle at the Dragon Border Part 2. The knight wins.

Chapter 20. The elves begin to fight among themselves. A civil war erupts. Despite this, they start overrunning the human kingdom.

Chapter 21. The remnants of the dwarves come to the humanity’s defense. The elves are finally defeated and driven back.

Chapter 22. The surviving members of the wizards come to the Dragon Goddess’ defense and begin preparations to open the Gate to allow the goddess to come to the realm. If she does, nothing can oppose her as she will be a living god.

Chapter 23. The knight is captured and tortured. His closest friends come and rescue him.

Chapter 24. The knight and his army meets the dragons and dragonkin at the Great Castle. The Great Castle falls, and the knight storms his way to the deep dungeons below to fight the Black Dragon.

Chapter 25. The knight fights the Black Dragon before the Gate to the Dragon Goddess’ realm is opened.


Epilogue: Several years later. The princess is in labor and gives birth to a dragon. The goddess’ plans are complete.

So, does any of this seem rushed? Of course. It’s a rough outline, but guess what? You now have the middle. Could any of this be more developed? Yes, definitely! Once you start getting into the chronology and pacing of the book, you’re going to find out that you’ll need to bring in more chapters, more subarcs, or maybe make cuts to the outline (like introducing the wizards is too much).

After that, you can think about twists and shoring up any story themes; however, you don’t have to do any of that, because with this outline now, you can actually start writing and let those components reveal themselves.

In conclusion, you now know how to plot without having to go crazy.

Happy writing!

Some Advice: Reputation is Everything

Normally, writing blogs are just about that; most are tips and tricks on how to write better such as eliminating filler, catching redundancies, use Active Voice, etc. Others are more about the business side of writing such as marketing, self-promotion, mailing lists, etc.

In this post, I want to discuss something very near and dear to my heart, but something I see time and time again new authors throw away and that is their professionalism which affects their reputation. For people who know me as Christianmichael Dutton who writes under the pen name Hui Lang (Chinese for Gray Wolf), they know I am one and the same. I take my brand, my persona, and my interactions with everyone seriously. Everything I write here, either a blog post for Dragon Soul Press, a short story for my Red Hoods Page, or a fanfic doodle on my personal FB page, I give 110%. I am a known plotter and I typically plot out a story five or more times before deciding on how I will write the story. Then I get feedback on my work if time permits after I’ve gone through several cycles of self-editing.

Let’s start with a foundational rule:

If you’re an author who wants compensation for their work, you need to treat this as a serious business.

Let’s talk about some things that shows a lack of professionalism and how you can mitigate irreparable harm to your reputation. These things are doubly important when you’re an indie author because you have full control over your writings and publishing.  

You publish a work that isn’t edited or poorly edited. You know why it’s so hard to find a lit agent or a publisher willing to accept your story? This. This is the reason why the big trad houses have an intern whose job it is to simply read the first three pages of every work just to weed out people who cannot follow directions or send in poorly edited works. I frequently download samples of many indie authors’ books. I can’t get past the first chapter on so many of them because it comes across as if English was their second language with the help of Google Translate.

You chose a terrible cover. “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” applies to people, but not to books. If you work with a trad pub house and they slap a cover that looks like stock art drawn by an eight-year-old or you grab a cute image from Pixabay because it’s royalty free, nothing screams out, “AMATUER!” than an amateurish cover. When I see that, I think your writing matches and I don’t even bother to download the sample. If you cannot afford a great graphics artist, then go with a trad publisher who puts out great covers on their books. Check out Dragon Soul Press’ covers and see for yourself the high quality they use. Some are amazingly gorgeous (Shadows of the Fallen, I’m looking at you).

Your writing is lazy. You use Passive Voice. You used tropes and clichés that the big trad pubishers don’t want, so now your book isn’t marketable unless you self-publish. You use a ton of adverbs. You switch POVs more times than spinning on the Mad Tea Party ride at Disneyland. The rule of “Your first million words is crap,” isn’t just some made-up mantra by self-righteous authors of a bygone era. I wrote my first book when I was fourteen. It was crap. My second book was also crap. By the time I had written my third book, I already had written well-over a million words from all the campaign and adventure writing for the table-top role-playing games Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder. My third book still sucked. When I finished my fifth book, Fallen From the Stars, it finally looked like something I might be able to market, but it took me over a 1.5 million words to get there. If you want to fast track your learning experience, then get feedback. Serious feedback that doesn’t hold back on where you’re weak.

You don’t leverage social media effectively. As an author, you post cute cat memes, send … ahh … naughty pics to other people, launch a vitriolic diatribe against Flat-Earthers, but support anti-vaxxers, and so on. You swear like a sailor on your media pages, but you write cute furry YA stories. It’s perfectly fine to post whatever you want to post. No one should judge you for that unless you’re harassing people or being an all-around jerk, but keep it separate. Your author page should have your million loyal fans who see you as the awesome writer, and only your close friends and family get to see your cursing sailor, hedonistic anti-vaxxer jaded personality on your personal page.

This advice may come across a bit harsh, but again, review the foundational rule. Treat being an author as a serious business, forge great relationships with other authors and fans, and people will reciprocate.

Happy writing!

Creating Good Female Villains

One thing I don’t like in fiction is female villains. A lot of their motivations tend to be cliche or at worst, misogynistic. It’s irritating that women villains cannot possess the same motivations of their male counterparts.

Here is a short post on helping you craft better female villains. I don’t say good because you still need to have good characterization as a skill, but if you get the motivation right, your villain will at least be better.

Cliche motivations for female villains are anything of the following:

  1. Anything related to “women’s issues.” The glass ceiling, relationships, unequal pay, domestic abuse, falling in love with a male Bad Boy, etc. Don’t use these issues as motivation to make the woman bad.
  2. “Amazon Women from Mars” or something along the lines of Women vs. Men in a misogynistic way.
  3. “Queen Bitch.” The female is a villain simply because she has power/money/magic, etc.

To have a motivation that doesn’t fall into these kind of traps, think of the tropes heroines are motivated to pursue and simply make the consequences of their actions bad. Despite this, they continue their goals.

For example: A super heroine pounds the living tar out of some bad guys who are trying to fire a laser at a nuclear plant thus making the Chernobyl disaster a walk in the park. Heroine saves the day. End of story. The villainess does the same thing. The bad guys die along with the support personnel who had no idea they were working on a laser to destroy a nuclear plant. This turns into a legal nightmare for the government who have a duty to enforce the law.

If this was a super heroine, she would probably hang up her cape and call it a day or mend her ways. The villainess won’t. The ends justify the means—after all, innocent lives were at stake. She does it again, this time to low-life bank robbers, then muggers, then to some teenagers vandalizing a beautiful park because she can’t control her strength (and doesn’t really care to). Sooner or later, the government has enough and puts resources to have her arrested.

The villainess now fights the government, the police, the National Guard, etc. She rationalizes they are nothing more than a system of control and the best way to deal with it is to destroy it.

One of the things that makes for a great villain is the ability to rationalize their actions in small steps, but it scales up. Real life crook Bernie Madoff didn’t wake up one morning and decided, “I’m going to create the biggest fraud in history today!” No, he altered a trade sheet here and there. He obtained and spent a $250k meant for investments here and there. He continued until he racked up billions in fraud. If he was caught in his very first year of defrauding investors, he would probably be out of prison by now. Change the gender and now you have a female villain whose primary motivation is greed, starts small, and then it builds up.

Happy Writing!

Demystifying Plotting Part 1 of 2

Let’s say you’re not a pantser; someone who just sits down, writes by the seat of their pants and then a few days later, they’ve finished their first draft of their latest novel. The reason why is that because every time you sit down and do it just that way, you’ve written up a cool beginning, belted out a few chapters, you have the ending in mind, and then you hit writer’s block. Literally run into it like you just ran into a brick wall.

However, when you Google up sites to help you plot or read blogs on plotting, you read, “First choose your theme, then write up a detailed plot, then outline your Three Act Structure, then take your Three Act Structure and break it out into the Ten Points, answering all these questions. After that, grab some notes cards, jot down every character in your book—what they look like, their motivations, flaws, their quirks, and the last time they went to the bathroom.”

Even I get intimidated if that was the process of plotting and I am a plotter.

While that is a very involved exercise, you don’t need to plot like that. Actually, you don’t need to put in a lot of effort into it at all. You just want a guide that will tell you, “Here’s the beginning, this is what happens, this is the middle, here’s the climax, and here’s the denouement. Done. Need to make changes? That is why the Tri-Headed Queen invented erasers.”

It’s the middle part that gets the writer every time!

You have this idea, this general plot, but you just need to get from A to Z by filling out all the other letters in between. Want to know my secret?

You jot down a bunch of crap.

Does it make sense? I don’t care.

Does it flow? I don’t care.

Does it stick to the theme? Theme? I’m sorry, but I really don’t care.

For now, I’m just writing down whatever random scene pops into my head as to what comes after A, what comes after B, and what comes after C. If you ever played table-top role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons, you may have heard the expression, “Bumbling from one random encounter to the next.” Because that’s all your chapters are: one encounter that leads to the next. When you have good characterization, consistent pacing, good tension, a theme that pops up here and there, a twist, guess what? You’ve written a concise story.

“Talk is cheap,” you say.

You’re right. Let’s work through an actual example in Part 2.