Today we are excited to share a guest post from author Hank Quense,
Moxie’s Problem!
Read on for more about the author and Moxie’s Problem!
Meet Hank Quense!
Hank Quense has self-published his books for over 12 years. His non-fiction books cover fiction writing (Creating Stories), self-publishing (How to Self-publish and Market a Book, Self-publish a Book in 10 Steps), marketing (Book Marketing Fundamentals) and author business (Business Basics for Authors) and Creating Your First Novel.
Hank also writes satirical fantasy and sci-fi. Early in his writing career, he was strongly influenced by two authors: Douglas Adams and his Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. Happily, Hank has never quite recovered from those experiences.
He lives in northern New Jersey, a mere 20 miles from Manhattan, the center of the galaxy (according to those who live in Manhattan). He has two daughters and five grandchildren all of whom live nearby.
For vacations, Hank and his family usually visit distant parts of the galaxy. Occasionally, they also time-travel.
About the Book: Moxie’s Problem
A Hilarious Medieval Romp
Meet Princess Moxie, the most obnoxiously entitled royal you’ll ever encounter. When this spoiled teenage princess is forced to experience the real world beyond the castle walls, her sheltered existence goes hilariously awry. Rejecting her betrothed and deciding to claim the throne instead, Moxie and her trio of long-suffering knight escorts embark on an outrageous quest. In Hank Quense’s delightfully satirical tale, the legends of Camelot get a brilliantly irreverent twist as Moxie slowly learns there’s more to life than privilege amid clever reinventions of medieval tropes. Prepare for a royally fun fantasy adventure that will have you roaring with laughter!
~ Guest Post ~
From Concept to a Series of Three Novels
I had this idea about a character I wanted to write about. The idea was that this character would undergo radical changes over the course of the story. After a lot of thinking and jotting down notes, I finally found the right story for this character. The initial story idea (a short story) evolved into a pair of novels that led to a third novel.
Princess Moxie is an unusual protagonist. She’s an obnoxious, self-centered teenager and often in a snit because someone didn’t do what she wanted them to do. Moxie’s favorite pose is hands on hips, scowling and tapping her toes. Readers don’t like her.
So why did I create such a character? Because the great thing about Moxie is her character arc. By the end of Moxie’s Problem, readers opinion of her has changed from annoyance to sympathy. By the end of the second novel, Moxie’s Decision, readers are hoping she will be successful in her quest to become the queen. That’s a heckuva change.
Character arcs aren’t an on/off switch. The character can’t be one way at the beginning and then a different way at the end with nothing in between. The story has to show the character slowly changing, in incremental steps. And some of the steps have to be negative ones, in which Moxie reverts back to her bad old ways. In effect, the character arc forms a story within the story.
Besides Moxie’s story, the novels have a number of characters stolen from the Camelot legends. For instance, I have several battles between Camelot’s Knights of the Round Table and the Saxon warriors led by the Hengist (an actual historical figure). However, instead of bloody shield walls, the battles take place on a football pitch using primitive rules and referees.
There are a number of other changes in my Camelot. Stonehenge for instance is a theater-in-the-round available for hire. Merlin investigates the magic of the mind using primitive Rorschach inkblot diagrams.
This strange Camelot and a few of Moxie’s adventures bothered me for quite a while: How could I get readers to accept a Camelot that was so different from the beloved legends? One day the answer hit me: my Camelot was in a parallel universe!
The perfect solution! And the Princess Moxie novels were launched!
Title: Moxie’s Problem
Author: Hank Quense
Illustrator/Cover Art: Gary Tenuta
Release Date: Aug 8, 2014
Publisher: Strange Worlds Publishing
Genre: Fantasy humor
Age Range: 12+
