Category: Elixir Bound (Page 3 of 20)

The Different Strengths of Female Characters: A Study of Anna and Elsa in Frozen 2

July 27, 2020 / Katie L. Carroll

Long-time readers of this blog know I’ve been writing about female characters for years and even did a wholes series of “Females in YA” posts. Some topics I’ve covered are unlikable girls, the Bechdel Test, and the feminist world in my first YA fantasy ELIXIR BOUND. One topic in particular I enjoy talking about is the different ways female characters can be strong (see “Females in YA: Part 5 Strong Female Characters”).

Frozen 2, which was the last movie I saw in theaters and is quite popular in my house right now (the whole Frozen franchise really…as evidenced by the requested Frozen Fever cake I made for my 3-year-old’s birthday earlier this month), is a really good example of the different kinds of strengths female characters can have.

Let’s take a look at Elsa. She embodies what a lot of people think about when it comes to strong female characters, à la Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games series or Sarah Connors from the Terminator franchise. I’m talking about the butt-kicking, weapon-wielding type. Elsa is powerful and so full of magic she literally cannot control it. These characters are seen as extraordinary and labeled as strong, often in a way that marks them as different from other female characters. Almost as if implying that women are inherently weak, especially since strong isn’t used nearly as often to describe male characters because it’s assumed of them.

These strong female characters certainly have their weaknesses; they wouldn’t be very interesting characters if they didn’t. Elsa can be distant to the people she loves, she has trouble accepting help, and she fails to recognize her own limitations. A character without such flaws is boring and has nothing to overcome internally.

In general, though, the power of characters like these women is in your face and often of the physical variety, so they get the descriptor of strong. Not to say that they aren’t mentally strong, too, (which they absolutely are), but their most obvious displays of strength are physical. These characters are clearly not to be trifled with. They go on adventures and quests. They face dangers and conquer them. I love these types of strong female characters!

But I also am quick to note that this isn’t the only way a female character can be strong (and this is true for male characters and we definitely need male characters to show different types of strength, but that’s for another post). That’s where Anna comes in.

There’s a running joke in the Frozen franchise about how Anna is ordinary. When she calls herself ordinary in the first Frozen movie, Hans (her love interest at the time) agrees by saying, “That’s right, she is.” When Anna shoots him a wounded look, he adds, “In–in the best possible way.” In Frozen 2, Olaf recounts the events of the first movie and describes the sisters by saying, “One born with magical powers, the other powerless.”

Anna is also openly affectionate, is not afraid to be silly, and is all too aware of her powerlessness. She has her moments of physical strength (justifiably punching Hans in the first Frozen movie after he’s betrayed her and Elsa), but I don’t think she would be described as a strong female character in the way Elsa (or Katniss or Sarah Connors) is.

Warning about Frozen 2 spoilers….

Yet one of the biggest examples of an act of strength in the entire Frozen franchise is performed by Anna in Frozen 2. Having come to the realization that her sister has sacrificed herself for the truth and clutching Olaf as he flurries away to his death, Anna lies on a dark cave floor and just wants to give up. In the song “The Next Right Thing,” she sings:

I’ve seen dark before, but not like this
This is cold, this is empty, this is numb
The life I knew is over, the lights are out
Hello, darkness, I’m ready to succumb

By the end of the song, Anna has found the strength within herself to make her way out the cave and has vowed to save her kingdom and the enchanted forest. Despite facing the darkest moments of her life and personally being done with it all, she gets up and moves forward (not on…there’s really no moving on from something like that). Then, despite the heartache and depression and physical fatigue, she proceeds to anger the Earth Giants so they throw boulders at her as they chase her to the dam that she is trying to get them to destroy. Now that’s a show of strength!

I’m not trying to take sides on whose strength is better. None of Anna’s strengths diminish Elsa’s, and vice versa. The point is that there are many different ways for characters (and people) to show strength and to be powerful. Let’s not limit our characters–male or female–to one type.

This is something I thought a lot about when working on the characters in the Elixir books. I wanted there to be strong female characters in every sense of the word. So if you enjoy stories about sisters and strong female characters (and ice palaces!), I encourage you to check out the award-winning YA fantasy ELIXIR BOUND and its standalone sequel ELIXIR SAVED.

ELIXIR SAVED Personality Quiz: What Element Fuels Your Magic

July 20, 2020 / Katie L. Carroll

I’ve always loved those BuzzFeed personality quizzes: Which Disney Princess Are You, What YA Dystopian Novel Would You Live In, What Fantasy Character Fits Your Personality. They remind me of my adolescents days when I would take the quizzes in Seventeen Magazine (when a physical magazine would actually come to your mailbox…I’m old!).

So I decided to make one for my latest YA fantasy ELIXIR SAVED. It was a lot of fun to make, and even more fun to take. (Can you tell all my marketing efforts for this book have been about doing things that I enjoy? If you haven’t seen my launch video with ELIXIR SAVED’s birth story, definitely check that out.)

One aspect of the worldbuilding I expanded upon from ELIXIR BOUND to ELIXIR SAVED was the magic. In book 1, we know some characters can use magic and others don’t. But as far as where magic comes from or what governs how it can be used, there’s not much there. What we do know is that Katora has inherited the magic of guardianship of the Elixir from her father and Hirsten has inherited his mapmaking magic from his father. We also know the higher beings use magic a lot more than humans and demicks, the mortal beings.

In book 2, I expanded upon how the magic in the world of the Great Peninsula works. One of the old theories is that magic comes from the elements, but that belief has fallen out of fashion in the time where the Elixir stories take place. Turns out, this is true. Each human or demick has one element that fuels their magic, though many mortal beings don’t tap into their magic at all. And higher beings can tap into all four elements as a source of magic.

The magic is fueled by the elements, but the magic itself isn’t necessarily tied to being able to manipulate a certain element Avatar-style (I only watched the series Avatar: The Last Airbender in the last couple of months and loved it!). So someone who gets their magic form the element water doesn’t use their magic to manipulate water…it’s simply the source of it. Each person’s magic is usually tied to being able to do one thing (like making maps move and hold memories), though, again, the higher beings aren’t restricted by this.

Which brings me to the quiz (finally!). You can find out what element fuels your magic, but what you do with that magic is only limited by your imagination. It also shows you what Elixir characters share that same element. It’s only 7 questions, and there are no wrong answers…the best kind of quiz!

B.T.W. I’m pretty consistently earth magic (no surprise that matches Katora’s element). I’d love to hear what your results are. Oh and if anyone is reading any of my book, I’d love pictures of them in the wild, so please tag me when you share.

The Story of How I Became A Writer

July 3, 2020 / Katie L. Carroll

Versions of this post about how I became a writer have been on several other people’s blogs, but I don’t think I’ve ever posted it here on my own blog. I was thinking about it as the release day for ELIXIR SAVED rapidly approaches and figured it was a good time to put it up here.

I thought my life as a writer began when I was 19 on particularly hot day in early spring 2002, a black-letter day, the blackest of black-letter days in fact. I was in college on track to becoming a physical therapist with an early acceptance into the graduate program. But I didn’t become a physical therapist; I became a writer.

I’ve since come to realize, with the help of my mom, that it was much earlier than that that I began my writing life. On my blog post on the release day of the ebook version of ELIXIR BOUND, she wrote, “Although you would have done fine as a physical therapist, I always knew it was not your calling. You were a writer ever since you could pick up a pencil and I think I always knew that, after all the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree (of course I’m talking about your dad).”

Well, my mom was mostly right. Even before I could pick up a pencil, my mom would read stories to us: the Little Golden Books, the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, all kinds of fiction. I think that’s when I became a writer.

When I stop to think about it, I don’t know why it took me so long to figure out I was a writer. The signs were all there. My family and I used to write and illustrate our own picture books about the adventures of Sam the Billy Goat. At the climax of the story it would always read, “Voop Whoosh! Up went the Billy Goat.” And he would fly up to save the day.

I wrote (and sometimes illustrated) stories my whole childhood. In middle school, high school, and college I worked on the school newspapers. Yeah, I think I had been in a state of denial for 19 years…which brings us back to that black-letter day…April 16, 2002. The day my sister Kylene died.

I don’t like to talk about that day. How the forget-me-nots were in bloom. How there were recording-breaking high temps. How it was the worst day of my life.

So what do you do when you’re 19 and your sister’s just died? Well, once you’re in a place where you can think again, you reevaluate. Everything.

For me that meant rethinking what I wanted to do with my professional life. Kylene gave me the permission to pursue my passion. So I began writing. Eventually I decided not to continue studying physical therapy. I kept writing, often not even sure who I was writing for. Kylene, an audience, myself?

I pursued publication. And got rejections, along with some encouragement. I revised, learned a lot more about the business of publishing. Wrote some more. Revised some more. Got a lot more rejections…you get the picture.

Ten years and four months after Kylene died, my book was finally born into the world. And what was that book about? A young woman, entrusted with the future of her family’s secret healing Elixir, going on a quest to find the Elixir’s secret ingredient.

I don’t need a psychoanalyst to tell me I was fulfilling a wish with that book. It was supposed to be about Kylene, and it is in some ways, but it’s really about me. Because for those 10 years, it had been too hard to write Ky’s book. I tried. ELIXIR BOUND started out from her point of view, but I just couldn’t write that book yet.

But I did eventually. ELIXIR SAVED is Kylene’s book…and a few other characters’, too, because writing just her story was too much (or not enough). It’s complicated.

As for Kylene’s real life story, I believe each of us as individuals doesn’t truly realize the impact we have on people. Each person we touch—whether it be with a story, a hug, a smile as we pass a stranger on the street—leaves a ripple.

Kylene, in her short life, left lots of ripples. With the people she loved. With the people she cared about. The people she felt compassion for, which was pretty much everyone. The people she shared the Harry Potter books with. Even the nurses in the hospital from the short time she was sick felt her ripples.

I like to think that each ripple I make with the Elixir Series is really Ky’s ripple…because I’m not sure I would have discovered my life’s passion if it weren’t for Kylene. It makes my heart smile to think that Kylene is still making ripples on the world, and that I have my own little role to play in that.

About ELIXIR SAVED: Three lives saved by the Elixir; three lives bound by it.

The Elixir entwines the lives of those it touches. Once upon a time, Kylene, Zelenka, and Devon tasted it and escaped death. None were left without scars. Now, a shocking message from the Ice Queen–one of Mother Nature’s higher beings–sends each survivor on a quest. Kylene travels to the frozen depths of Blanchardwood, Zelenka heads back to the wilds of Faway Forest, and Devon journeys to a reclusive mountain temple. The three paths converge in a war against an ancient and tricky foe. And even the Elixir cannot save everyone. The fate of the world balances on the edge of a sword, and the outcome depends on whether the survivors will sacrifice their second chances.

Escape back into the world of the Great Peninsula in this much-anticipated sequel to the award-winning ELIXIR BOUND. Perfect for fans of the Thrones of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas.

Find the book on Bookshop, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, IndieBound, Smashwords, Apple Books, and Book Depository (for international folks).

ELIXIR SAVED Teaser Tuesday: The Three River Split

May 5, 2020 / Katie L. Carroll

Leading up to the July 14, 2020 release of my latest YA fantasy ELIXIR SAVED, sequel to the award-winning ELIXIR BOUND, I’ll be posting teasers and tidbits on Tuesdays. Feel free to share!

I haven’t shared any from Zelenka’s point-of-view yet, so this is her week. The Three River Split is also in ELIXIR BOUND (which is on sale for $0.99 if you haven’t read it yet), but I never tire of picturing it and attempting to describe it to readers. As you can probably tell from the excerpt, Zelenka never tires of this place either.

ELIXIR SAVED teaser text:

Then the tumult reached a deafening level. Poky followed the tilli around a bend in the path. Zelenka sucked in a breath as she witnessed the East Rauor River cascade over the cliff and split into three tributaries…

Three years gone without having been able to stare at this wonder of nature.

About ELIXIR SAVED:

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Three lives saved by the Elixir; three lives bound by it.

Escape back into the world of the Great Peninsula in this much-anticipated sequel to the award-winning ELIXIR BOUND. Perfect for fans of the Thrones of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas.

Pre-order it from Bookshop, IndieBound, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Book Depository, Kobo, Smashwords, or your favorite book retailer.

ELIXIR SAVED Available for Pre-order & Writing in the Time of Coronavirus

April 9, 2020 / Katie L. Carroll

I keep seeing all these memes about how famous people made masterpieces while in quarantine, including Shakespeare penning King Lear during a plague outbreak. Meanwhile, I’m trying to manage distance learning with the kiddos, feed these very hungry children, and keep them busy while stuck at home 24/7. Oh, and I have a book coming out in July.

Writing? What is that even?

After finishing ELIXIR SAVED, I was actually planning on taking a break from writing to fill the creative well. But this forced break, where the idea of writing seems foreign and unattainable during a global pandemic, wasn’t what I had in mind. I had been hoping for a minute to breathe, to dig into my to-be-read pile with joy and enthusiasm, and to the take time to enjoy the outdoors in spring.

The other day, I browsed through my notebook for my witchy middle grade WIP. Meaning I stared at my notes and beat sheet somewhat blankly and added a few questions (like what does it even look like to write a contemporary story in the time of coronavirus when you started the story before there was such a thing?), which I have absolutely no answers for. Then I put it away and ran around with the boys in the backyard instead. My brain was so not able to focus on anything creative like that.

C’est la vie! In between all the family stuff (and managing my own anxiety, which has been high lately…to say the least), I’ve squeezed in a few minutes to work on updating my website with a new look and I’ll slowly be updating the pages as well. This kind of work uses a different part of the brain that doesn’t seem so stuck by the current state of events.

In some good news, ELIXIR SAVED has been popping up for pre-order on retail sites, like IndieBound, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Smashwords, Book Depository, and Kobo. I’d love if you’d add it to your Want to Read list on Goodreads. Oh, and ELIXIR BOUND in ebook is only $0.99 right now! If you haven’t read it, now is a great time to pick it up. If you’ve already read it, I’d love for you to leave a review of it on Goodreads and Amazon or other ebook retail sites.

How is everyone doing? What are you all doing?