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In my opinion, a writer’s secret weapon is theme. Theme is the underlying message. Theme is what elevates a good book to a great read. To learn about theme, I studied Frank Herbert’s Dune, how he wove the themes of religion and environmental science into his settings, his characters, and his plots. If done well, your theme should permeate your book, from the plots to the characters to the dialogue to the settings. My epic medieval fantasy, The Silk & Steel Saga, has many themes woven through it. One of the main themes is to explore the mechanisms of evil. Evil is not just a horde of ugly orcs brandishing swords. In my saga, those who walk on the Dark side are beautiful, smart, and manipulative…which makes them scary as hell. The avatars of good must recognize evil and foil their mechanisms in order for good to have a chance to prevail. The second theme of the saga is prejudice, how stupid, cruel and wasteful it is. In the Silk & Steel Saga, those who are overlooked often make the greatest difference. And the third theme is how women gain, keep, and wield power in a medieval world. This third theme also influenced the very name of the saga itself, Silk And Steel Saga, with the acronym of SASS, I hope you will agree that the women in my saga have plenty of sass! As a reader, themes are the key to truly understanding a good book, as a writer, themes are the key to elevating a good book to a great book.

I became a writer because I love to read. I discovered the library in fourth grade and was instantly smitten by the magic and wonder of books. Reading has been a lifelong passion, a magic carpet whisking me away on many adventures. I long to don burnished armor and fight for justice, to search for treasure in a faraway land, to explore secret passages of a ruined castle, to find love on a windswept mountain. Reading has given me so much pleasure that I wanted to pay it back by contributing my own verse, The Silk & Steel Saga.
I believe "you are what you read." So I thought I'd share with you some of the books and movies that inspired me to write my own epic fantasy saga. Perhaps you'll recognize echoes of these works in my writing...but only echoes, since I put my own twist on everything.
First and foremost is George Martin's Game of Thrones. Reading this epic medieval fantasy is what caused me to put pen to paper (actually fingers to keyboard) and start writing The Silk & Steel Saga. After reading Game of Thrones I wanted more but could not find it on the bookstore shelves, so I decided to write my own saga. I love George's style of writing, where each chapter is deep in the point-of-view of an individual character, so I used that same style for my saga. This style lets both the reader and the writer get deep into each character, so you truly understand their needs, their wants, their secret desires. This depth of character makes everything seem more real. Deep characterization is what draws the reader into the rabbit hole.
The second work that inspired me is JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. LOTR is the saga that made me fall head-over-heels in love with epic fantasy. I longed to live in a land of elves, wizards and enchanted forests. For me, LOTR is the masterwork of fantasy world building. Middle Earth is a world you long to explore, from the mines of Moria, to the halls of Rivendale, to the towering Argonath, it lives and breathes in our imaginations. Inspired by LOTR, I strive to add magic and enchantment to the kingdoms of Erdhe, from the illuminated manuscripts covering the walls of the Kiralynn Monastery, to the towering forests of the Deep Green, to the shimmering battlements of Castlegard, and the fearsome magic of the Gargoyle Gates. I hope you will agree that Erdhe is a land brimming with wonder, a feast for the imagination.
The third work that inspired me is Frank Herbert's Dune. To me, Frank Herbert is the master of incorporating themes like environmental science, religion and politics into the weave of his story, turning Dune into a classic. Theme is the underlying message. Theme is what elevates a good book to a great read. Themes resonate with the reader, drawing us back to read the same book over and over again. Inspired by Dune, The Silk & Steel Saga has many themes woven through it. One of the main themes is to explore the mechanisms of evil. Evil is not just a horde of ugly orcs brandishing swords. In my saga, those who walk on the Dark side are beautiful, smart, and manipulative…which makes them scary as hell. The avatars of good must recognize evil and foil their mechanisms in order for good to have a chance to prevail.
Another book that caught my imagination as a young reader was Bram Stoker's Dracula. There is a plot twist in Dracula that I think is positively brilliant and you'll find echoes of it in The Silk & Steel Saga. There is one character in particular whose story arc is inspired by the original Dracula...but I'm going to let my readers figure this one out for themselves.
One of the movies that inspires my writing is Braveheart. The underlying theme of Braveheart is 'it's our wits that make us men'. I love how all the battles in Braveheart are about strategy, advantage, and alliances, not just sword and brawn (although there is plenty of that too). Inspired by Braveheart, The Silk & Steel Saga is brimming with medieval battles, swords and spears and shields, but all of the battles have some twist dealing with strategy, advantage and alliances. In my saga, victory is often achieved more by wits than by swords.
And last but not least, another movie that inspired my writing is the Highlander (especially since it stars Sean Connery...be still my beating heart). In the Highlander, the immortals are battling for 'the prize.' In The Silk & Steel Saga, the dedicates of the Dark Lord are battling for more lifetimes, but each lifetime must be earned. What would you do for another lifetime, another youth, another hundred years?
I hope you'll read The Silk & Steel Saga and let me know what echoes you find in my writing! Enjoy!

When I first started writing The Silk & Steel Saga, I planned to write a trilogy. I'm the type of author who writes what I most love to read. My favorite books are big sweeping sagas with complex characters and complex plot twists set in a world full of wonder, books like Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Frank Herbert's Dune, and George Martin's Game of Thrones. To me, as a long-time lover of fantasy, that initially meant writing a trilogy. But as I finished writing the second book, The Flame Priest, I realized there was no way the story could be told in a trilogy, so I set my sites on a five book saga. But while I was writing the 'last' book there was still too much story to be told. So I published The Knight Marshal and now it is a six book saga. I think I can finish the story in six books but I still have tons to write. If it gets too long then I will break this book in two as well, but that will finish it. I figure as long as I don't have a single boring chapter, it is okay to keep writing. And Erdhe is so big, with so many cool characters and so many interesting plot twists that I don't want to leave anything unwritten. So I hope you will agree with me that it is the quality of the story that matters, not the number of books in the saga. But I must say, I'm looking forward to typing 'The End'!