Electronic publishing, especially of books, is still a new idea to most people, but I've been working on it for several years. It isn't the same as print publishing except you read it on a screen. Even the market is different. I began developing a style for this medium and this market with a careful look at who used the internet, then projected who would be using it when I believed electronic book publishing would become a viable industry. It's still in its infancy, but there's no doubt the baby is healthy and beginning to grow fast.

I constructed my writing style from the bottom up. The differences begin with the changes in society which modern communication brought about. Radio, television and now the internet have changed our way of life and even the way we think. Entertainment is different. The focus of the camera has changed our vision. A pan in, closeup and dialog have become the way we 'get into a character's head' most often. How does one translate that to a book? I chose to begin with a careful reconstruction of third person omniscient point of view.

One of the most important differences in writing for e-publication is the pace of the story must be much faster to hold the reader against the siren call of the internet, just a mouse click away. There is far less description in my work than in most books. It slows the pace.

I chose not to use some of the traditional elements of style for this format. I don't use italics. Stressed words are in capitals. They're easier to read on-screen. I don't use dialog tags either; he said/she said. You can nearly always find who's speaking by looking in the paragraph before or after. I don't break monologues into paragraphs. Everything the character says is in one set of quotes. The next set of quotes/paragraph is another speaker. I judge the success of the technique by the number of readers who have said it took a very short time to get used to it and they soon seemed to be hearing the dialog as they read it. A story you hear with your eyes was my goal.

In general, my books are fast-paced science fiction action/adventure, space opera, primarily for an adult female audience. Both good music and good food are fairly common in them, as are high-principled, sexy, heroes. My intention is to entertain. My most hoped for reaction to a book is "That was fun." However, that requires a good plot, interesting characters, well constructed societies, solid science and strong logic. I believe I have succeeded in incorporating all of those in my work.

Every book is written to be interesting to read several times. They're constructed so the reader develops a complete mental picture over the course of the book. However, the books are 'dense', very fast paced with a great deal of complexity, so that picture lacks detail. In other words, there's too much to remember everything and how it all fit together after one reading. I wrote them to haunt the reader. The imagery is designed to cause the questions "Now where was that? How did that happen?"

Most of my work has polyamory relationships presented in a very favorable context. What is polyamory? Briefly, it means loving more than one. It does not mean 'swinging' or promiscuity. It's about love, not about sex. In much of my work, there are long term loving relationships of more than two people and group marriages. The Poly Webring on the links page will lead anyone with more questions to sites which provide a wealth of information on the term and concepts.

Some of my books have elements of what is commonly called "slash" in fan fiction. The definition of the term I got when I first asked about it was "loving relationships between men written for women. It's fantasy and we do know it." In fan fiction, slash is usually explicit. In my books, it is not. The focus is on the relationship, just as it is in my other work. The scenes 'fade to black' at the appropriate moment.