72. BOOK TALK: The Witch Collector

Have you ever read a book and the world falls away? 

Pay attention to those moments. Because as writers, we can learn a lot from the books that inspire us. 

We should study what works and why. We can also explore what didn’t work for us and learn how that knowledge can also shape us into the writers we want to be. 

In today’s episode, host Erin P.T. Canning discusses The Witch Collector, a fantasy romance novel by Charissa Weaks. Learn what made this book unique with its use of magic and sign language, what the author used as her hook, and Erin’s overall impression of the story. 

You’ll also gain tips for world building, introducing several characters, and avoiding the all-too-easy info dump. We’ll also analyze the length of time before we reach the inciting incident (call to action). 

Learn more about Charissa’s book: 

• The Witch Collector: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09H6894GR 

Connect with Parents Who Write: 

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/parentswhowrite 
• Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/parentswhowrite 
• Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/parentswhowrite  

READY TO TAKE YOUR WRITING FURTHER? 

Join our Patreon community and access our vibrant Discord writing group to get writing prompts, participate in sprints, download free resources, and more: 
https://www.patreon.com/erinptcanningeditor

Transcript

Erin P.T. Canning: 0:00

Have you ever read a book and the world falls away? All you see is the world the author has created. Pay attention to those moments. Notice when they happen. Because as writers, we can learn a lot from the books that inspire us. We can study what works and why. We can also acknowledge what didn't work for us and learn from that. Both of those experiences help shape us into the writers we want to be. That's why in today's episode, I'm going to discuss a book, both as a reader and what I noticed as an editor that we can all learn from. So stay tuned to gain new insight into world building, info dumps, and introducing dozens of characters. You're listening to Parents Who Write, the podcast that helps you pursue your writing dreams. I'm your host, Erin P. T. Canning. I'm an author, editor, writing coach, and mom of two young boys. And my mission is to help you prioritize your writing, strengthen your voice, and gain confidence and direction so that you can own your identity as a writer and thrive as an author. Hey friend, welcome to another episode of Parents Who Write. I'm doing something a bit different this time around. Where are my readers who love forced proximity and enemies to lovers? Two of my favorite tropes. Today I'm going to review The Witch Collector, both as a reader and as an editor. Why? Because writers learn from reading. I mean, we also learn from workshops and working with great editors and all that other fun jazz, too. But reading is what inspires us. It's what I would hope, for most of us, got us into being writers in the first place. That being said, let's dive in. This week I finished reading The Witch Collector by Charissa Weaks. I read the first book in the series, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I loved it. Our story starts out with Raina. She is determined to kill The Witch Collector because every year The witch collector comes into our village, and he selects one witch who is then supposed to go back and help The Frost King protect their lands. But nobody ever sees that witch again. They never hear from them. A friend of mine described it as kind of like being drafted. But imagine your friend gets drafted and then you never get to see them again. Raina's sister was selected by The Witch Collector eight years ago. And so she has been living with this hatred in her heart for The Witch Collector. Hence, chapter one starts off with Raina's determination that this year she is going to kill The Witch Collector. And then stuff happens and the kingdom is threatened, and she and The Witch Collector are forced into a situation where they have a bigger enemy to deal with and have to work together. Hence our forced proximity and our enemies to lovers storyline that we are going to get. One of the things that I absolutely loved about this story is that the main female character, Raina, communicates through sign language. It's not portrayed as a handicap or that something's wrong with her. They never use the word that, uh, she's mute. It's just that she was born without a voice, and she communicates through sign language. The fact that she uses sign language was never portrayed in a negative light. The other thing that I really loved about this whole world building was the magic. Magic is described as threads that you can see the threads. When Raina, who is able to heal, she describes it as seeing the threads of life and how she has to weave them back together again in order to heal. It was just a very beautiful and unique way, at least for me so far, to see magic portrayed in this way. The other witches in Raina's village use their magic by singing, and Raina sings with her hands. So then it created that double beautiful image of when she has to weave together the threads of life, she's using her hands, and she's singing with her hands. And it just, it really created this, this beautiful imagery for how magic works. The other thing that was really cool about the magic system is for a large portion of the story, which is part of that forced proximity, the main female character and the male character, Alexus, are stuck inside a magical trap, which they call a construct. And it was just interesting to see how the construct would lure people into these traps and how they had to overcome those traps and work together and deal with some enemies who are in there as well. But the way how the magical trap moved and changed with the environment and, and how that was part of the trap was just extremely fascinating to see. It is a dual POV book, so our main female character is Raina. Our male main character is Alexus. Loved him! The tropes throughout this story are forced proximity, enemies to lovers. We've got revenge. We have hidden identity. We've got good versus evil. I love me a good versus evil type story. And we were dealing with gods and magic. Alexus is kind. He's dependable. He's also misunderstood. And Raina is feisty. She's kind of the hidden hero, the underdog. At the beginning of the book, everybody assumes that she doesn't really have any magical abilities at all. And so she does have this secret power, and I love that. I love a character who is proven to be way stronger. The book does a great job with foreshadowing Alexis's dark side. So pay attention through that as you're reading the book. When I'm reading that in Kindle, I highlight them. So this way, I can go back. Whenever I feel like an author is providing a moment of foreshadow. I like to highlight it. This is the, the reader and the editor in me. I like to highlight that foreshadow, and then I'll take a look and go back and see, did they follow through on that thread, or did that get forgotten? Or is that something that's actually going to wind up showing up in book two or three? Another one of the foreshadows in the book is the red headed enemy soldier that we see in the beginning of the book. I highlighted him, and I waited for him to come back and sure enough he did. So the author did a great job with dropping those foreshadows and following through at the end. That was great. Also a tip for writers out there, do the same thing. Highlight your foreshadows. Put a comment in the side of your document, so this way when you are done with your manuscript, you can easily see them and go back. If these are seeds that you have planted for books farther down in your series, then you can copy those notes into the manuscript for the next book in this series. Uh, so this way you can make sure that you are not dropping those threads, right? We don't want to drop the threads! So, fun tip there. Speaking of the editor side of things, I will say, it still pains me to say anything negative about a book, the first chapter felt like a major info dump. This is something that a lot of writers struggle with, especially when we're dealing with fantasy. We're setting up a lot of world building. It's an easy trap for people to fall into. So, the first chapter was a bit challenging to get through. I was intrigued. She still kept me in with the hook of, you know, Raina wants to kill The Witch Collector. And I'm like, alright, cool. I wanna, I wanna see how that's gonna work out. Um, we don't really get a plan on how she's gonna kill The Witch Collector. She's just like, I'm just gonna kill him. I'm like, okay. But it wasn't pivotal to the plot because of the fact that it turns into forced proximity situation, but still, I'm like, okay, I don't, I don't know how you're gonna pull that off, but okay. So, we get a big info dump in chapter one where we're talking about the different kingdoms, the different leaders. It got a bit overwhelming. One of the biggest things that's important to avoid the info dump that I've learned is that it's really important to save info, the backstory, for when it matters the most. So, when we started out this story, I didn't really care to know about all the different lands and all the different leaders and, you know, gods, and she gets the god knife. Okay, cool. Like, I don't necessarily need all the backstory yet, because I'm not I'm not emotionally invested in any of those gods in any of these other lands, right? I just want to know about Raina. I want to know what's driving her. I want to know why she wants to kill The Witch Collector. I want to know what's at stake. That being said, the author does do a beautiful example later on about saving info for when it matters most. There's a moment where Raina has lost everything. Absolutely everything. And here is a paragraph that I captured from the book."Mother used to say that grief always strikes when we least expect it, and that we rarely realize how those we love inhabit even the most seemingly inconsequential parts of our lives. It's in those moments that the pain of their absence strikes so much deeper, because the time we took for granted suddenly shines in sharp relief. Like right now, as I stare at Mother's dish." if we had started the scene or that moment, that paragraph with, There's my mother's bowl. Mother used to say that grief always strikes when we least expect it. You're kind of like, oh, okay, that's really sad. But instead here we have this moment of her in mourning and she's talking about the fact that she doesn't know when her grief is going to strike her and that it's going to hit in the most mundane moments. And you're like, wow, that is really sad. And then boom. Oh, and here's this physical reminder of my mother. That's when you get the punch in the gut. I'm glad that she didn't tell us from the beginning that The Witch Collector had picked up her mother's bowl somehow and was carrying it with him the entire time. Instead, we get her grieving and then we get the punch at the end of, there's this physical reminder of just how much I have lost. Save the information for when it matters. Um, in relation to a lot of info dumping, we know that there's something going on with Alexus from the beginning. She foreshadows from the beginning that he has this darkness inside him. And rather than telling us right at the beginning, we start getting those hints throughout the story. And then right when it matters most is when Alexus opens up and is honest and finally reveals that information. Because, if we found out at the beginning of the story, we're just getting to know him, like, if we had this information from the beginning, it'd be kind of like, okay, right? But we need to start caring about them first, and then you punch us in the gut with the information, okay? Something else that I really noticed in this book was, uh, the way that the author laid out giving us that preview of normal life before the inciting incident happens. The inciting incident, again, is the catalyst that changes the main character's life. It sets the main conflict in motion. It's the call to action, right? In Finding Nemo, it's Nemo swimming out and touching the butt of the boat. For The Little Mermaid, it's Ariel falls in love with and saves Prince Eric. In Harry Potter, it's when he receives his first Hogwarts letter. For Katniss, it's when her sister is selected at the reaping to participate in the Hunger Games. Those are the inciting incidents. That is what sets the main conflict in motion. Usually you want that to happen within the first one to three chapters of your book. This can be more challenging when you have a dual point of view because then you need to show normal life for both characters and then the inciting incident for both characters, which could happen separate or together. I will say that at the beginning of The Witch Collector, I felt like the inciting incident for Raina took a little bit long. We could have chopped it down a bit by eliminating a lot of the info dump that we got in chapter one, but I did a quick analysis. So, from Raina's point of view, we have four chapters of her normal life. Remember when I said that we want the inciting incident to happen within one to three chapters? We get her normal life, that is four chapters, and then we get the inciting incident when her world shatters at the end of chapter six, so it's really more so chapter seven. I really would have loved for the author to cut that down to three chapters, if not two, in all honesty. Um, she had a lot of characters that I know she wanted to set up. And there was a lot of buildup with the God knife and like having to get it sharpened and et cetera. But I think especially with the info dumping, it kind of would have been really cool if it had started with her finding the God knife and being like, I'm going to kill The Witch Collector today. Like, awesome. You've got me hooked. So let's proceed. So as I said, Raina, it was four chapters of her normal life. Then for Alexus, his normal life is Collecting Day. He is on his way to take his next collector for the day, which by the way is Raina. So we've already got our, our characters, uh, where their lives are going to intersect. She wants to kill him and he has to collect her. But Alexus has one chapter of his normal life and then the inciting incident takes place. That was beautiful. Thank you for the two chapters. The story is amazing. Keep reading. I loved it. One more thing from an editor writer perspective, especially with fantasy novels, it can be very challenging when we have a lot of characters, titles, and names, right? Especially with that info dump that we get in chapter one, that was really like the biggest problem. And then more than halfway through the book we get another big info dump, but at least it was told through storytelling, and I'm emotionally invested in it at that point. And it was made personal because of Alexus explaining how this has affected him. So at least I have emotional investment now, and that helps. But going back even to Chapter 1, we have a lot to keep track of in terms of characters, titles, names, locations, etc. One example is we're introduced to Fia, or we're not even introduced to her. She is a name, but Fia is referred to as also the Southern Queen, the Fire Queen, and the Summerland Queen. And her name, Fia. So those are four different ways to refer to the same character at the start of a book when I don't know this person. I'm not actually meeting them. I'm not seeing them interact, and I don't really care about who they are yet. Four different names, and that's only for one person. And there were a bunch of other people where it was like, you know, West and East, and then also Frost King, and like, you know, and then we've got the Summerlands, but then we've got the Eastlanders, and it was just, it can be overwhelming. Okay, so here, here are my tips. Number one, save names for when they matter, and if you do have to introduce them in some way, then use only one title or a descriptor for a while. In my books, I have a character who's a side character. He kind of pops up every now and again. He does have a name, but I know that my readers aren't going to remember who he is. So I always have Adaline refer to him as the Panda. In chapter one of The Witch Collector, we could have just stuck with the Fire Queen. Or, if you really want to specify the location, the Fire Queen in the South. If you need to do an additional reference, you could say the Summerlands' Fire Queen. Like, but, always sticking on the Fire Queen, because that gives me a visual, right? Just calling her Fia, I don't have a visual for her yet. So Fire Queen, that's something that I can hold on to. I'm visualizing fire and this powerful person. As you're going through the story, that's when you can start reminding your reader with those additional bits of information. With a sentence like, as the Queen of the North, Sansa needs to handle many negotiations. You're adding in that descriptor in a way where you're not saying Sansa, the Queen of the North, da da da da. You can. It's always fine to put that in there if you have to drop that in real quick. You know, Vinnie, my cousin, said da da da da da. It's okay too. But you can also get more creative. As the Queen of the North, Sansa needs to handle many negotiations. Here, her having to handle these negotiations is because of the fact that she's the Queen of the North, right? So it's important to the sentence, not just being stuck in there as a reminder. For me, when I brought up the panda again in book three in Fire and Fortitude, I wanted Jorrel's name to be mentioned, but I didn't want to say Jorrel, the panda, right? So instead, I had my character think in her head, "Oh, it's the panda! Gah! I have to stop calling Jorrel that." So you can put those context clues really close together and it helps the reader to remember, oh, Jorrel is the panda. Right, got it. Okay, move on. So it could have been the same thing where, say later on when we're getting the next info dump, and Alexus instead refers to Fia, Raina could have been like, Fia, you mean the Fire Queen? And then it's like, oh, okay, so the Fire Queen, because now I've heard her referenced only as the Fire Queen this whole time; I know who the Fire Queen is. Oh, now I've got a name, Fia. That's cool. You can get that information in very subtle ways, useful ways, that will help remind your reader without overwhelming them. So, those are like three comments though. An info dump in chapter one, definitely worth keep reading. The characters and names that we get in chapter one, I mean, I skipped over them for the most part and I kept reading because I was really interested in how Raina was going to apparently kill The Witch Collector. Um, and then when Alexus's world shatters in his second chapter, I was like, whoa, okay, yep, I want to keep reading because that's, that's a big world shattering right there, which then led to Raina's inciting incident. So keep reading. Overall, genuinely loved the story. I'm going to read book two. I'm nervous because I read the first chapter, or at the end of book one, there was like a preview for book two. It was from the perspective of the bad guy. And the bad guy was revealing his plans for our two main characters. And I was like, Oh, dang, that's a really, really smart plan that could really like kill the main characters. I'm genuinely terrified for them now. Um, and so I'm a little, no, okay. As a reader, I really enjoyed Raina. I completely understood why she struggled so much with befriending The Witch Collector. There, we have that connection, that instant chemistry between them when they do first meet, or at least when Raina like finally looks at him and she's like, Whoa, he's not some old creepy guy. He's actually this really hot guy. That sucks. I love the fact that there was that instant spark with them, but it made sense to me that Raina would struggle with that for a good portion of the book because of the fact that all she's known so far is that he took her sister eight years ago and she never got to see her again. So she doesn't know the big picture. Whereas for us as readers, because we get Alexus's POV throughout the story, we do know what's, well, we get a sense of what's at stake because he starts hinting at it, and it's like, oh, okay. What is the bigger picture behind all of this? But we know that he's the good guy. Raina doesn't know he's the good guy. She's not privy to his POV. So, it makes sense that she struggles with that for a while, but it felt very believable. And I also credit her that when she finally had to deal with the fact that everything that she thought she knew was wrong, she finally, and within like, I don't know, maybe a chapter, chapter and a half, I don't, I don't remember exactly, but within a reasonable amount of time, came to that conclusion and said based on his actions, based on the person I've seen, like I really can't keep arguing with who he is, what he's saying. Like that's got to be true. Um, so I credit her with the fact that she was able to actually course correct and focus on what the bigger picture was at hand here and, and working together with him. There you have it! That's my review of The Witch Collector, which I finished reading in two days because I seriously did nothing else but immerse myself in this world. I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. I hope you'll read it too, both as a reader and as a writer. If you're looking for an editor or coach to help you finally finish your manuscript, then book a free discovery call with me today. Take yourself off the shelf and prioritize your dream now. Just click the link at the bottom of the show notes.