Fun Stats About my Books
I wrote a post a few months ago about “darkness” and included some stats at the end for my books. (See: I Write Darkness.) That post was prompted by my revisions of Serpentus, which was the most emotionally-difficult book I’ve written to date. If you’ve read The Relics of War, you probably know why. That’s all I’m going to say.
Anyway, I went one step farther and decided to make some fancy charts. (Okay, they’re not that fancy, but it’s something.)
If you’ve read some of my books, this might be fun. And if you haven’t, this might help you decide if you want to read them at all.
Main Character Roles
Let’s start with the tamer chart: what role does the main character play in the book? Since most of my work has been epic fantasy, the warrior vs mage roles shouldn’t come as a surprise. The others… well, I’ll explain them below.
I have 2 anomalous main characters who are mage-warriors in The Mage War Chronicles series, so they’ve been counted once each as a warrior and a mage.
The other characters include Chandra Gray from Hunted (she’s a summoner and the work is urban fantasy, so “mage” was close but not quite right); Sal’zar in The Ballad of Alchemy and Steel (he’s an alchemist); and Kye in my sci-fi project (he’s a cyborg.)
I prefer writing warrior-types to mages, but I was surprised when it turned out to be a pretty even split. (I suspect my two mage-warriors being in both categories helped that a bit.)
The Darkness Meter
This is the scarier chart for two reasons. First, there’s a lot more data crammed in here, and second, there’s a body count. I tallied up all the “important” characters (those who are named and interact at some point with a main character) who don’t make it to the end of my books, but I’m not going to share that number here. It’s more than I was anticipating. Oops…
This one also sums up battle/combat scenes, and whether or not a main character finds romance/love during the story. I’m not counting side characters here, just mains.
As you can see, there are a few books that feature no main character romances, but only one doesn’t have a death of any kind.
The sci-fi project is included, although the blue and black bands will probably grow a bit before I’m finished with it. That main character is not slated for romance, but he’s not interested in it anyway.
I really enjoy writing fight scenes, so there is almost always at least one in every book.
I’m sure there are other items I can add to the chart that might be of interest, but these were the three that came to mind. I hope you enjoyed this little insight into my books.