Genre Separates the Indies from the Traditionals

Genre is the one place where you may find a major difference between traditionally published novels and indie published novels.

Traditionals fit into bookstores
Traditionally published novels have to fit into a very narrowly defined genre space in a bookstore. The author has to adhere to the rules of genre so that the novel is easily identified as belonging to the genre. A mystery story is clearly distinct from its first cousin, the thriller, for example.

Unless you are a well-known author of best sellers, the reader isn’t shopping for your book in a book store. Instead, the reader is browsing the shelves looking for an interesting mystery, thriller, romance or whatever genre they prefer. The challenge for the new traditionally published author is to build a fan base that will seek books written by them in the future.

The indie difference
Indie published authors don’t have to worry as much about genre definitions because they aren’t marketing in traditional bookstore outlets. And their fan base is built from loyal family and friends and word-of-mouth. Such buyers are buying the author more than the book. Indie novel readers tend to select the author first and the book second.

The challenge for the indie author is to reach new readers through social media and online marketing combined with speaking gigs and traditional PR efforts. Indie authors still need a genre to identify the book’s place in Amazon or Smash Words, but the author self-selects the genre.

The indie author need only select the genre that most nearly fits what the story is about. This leaves the indie author with more freedom to mix genres and experiment with genre formats in ways traditionally published authors can’t. This is a subtle difference, but one you can notice if you look for it. But you have to know the basic rules of the genre you enjoy reading.

Speaking of reading...
My new horror novel Hags is about an ex-con who is accused of serial murders while battling a human-sized faerie and a couple of hags as evil as any from the Middle Ages. As the body count mounts, will he learn the secret of the hags before he becomes their next victim?

Today is the last day to download Hags for free. But you have to act before midnight tonight. Obtain your free copy for your Kindle reader by clicking here.

Don’t have a Kindle reader? Download the free version for your computer or smart phone from Amazon by clicking here.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

What is the Theme of Your Life?

Can you spot the theme in the books you are reading? One clue to the theme is to identify the main character’s biggest fault. Micah in Hags has issues with unresolved anger. He has other issues like a defeated outlook at the beginning of the story. For fun, watch how Micah’s personality becomes stronger as you move forward in the plot. What theme does that point to? How about a message like “forgiveness makes you stronger.” Or “don’t let adversity get you down.”

Another way to look at theme is to consider your own life.
What is the thread that runs through your world? You may want to start with your biggest fault. Or your biggest disappointment. Or that thing that keeps happening over and over again to you. Why do you suppose that keeps happening to you? There’s a theme in your life. The good news is it is not too late to change the theme or make it work for you instead of against you. Ask a few trusted friends about the theme they see running through your life. What themes run through the lives of your friends?

Read Hags for Free Now
Download Hags for free this week only from Amazon for your Kindle reader by clicking here.

Don’t have a Kindle reader? Download the free version for your computer or smart phone from Amazon by clicking here.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Why Aren’t You Like That?

A good story has a point. The author starts with an idea and writes a cool first draft. Like your first read, it is mainly about the plot. Then the author notices something interesting about the story, or maybe the author intended it all along. The thing that’s noticed is the moral of the story. It’s like those old faerie tales where at the end, you read something like, “And the moral of the story is never go into the woods alone.” Well, in a good novel, the author is telling us something about our world. Think of it as the life lesson illustrated by the story.

During the editing process, good authors go back through their story and bring out this moral so it weaves like a thread running through the fabric of the tale. In horror and other thrillers or fantasy fiction, the theme is often innocence to experience. Super8 is a good example of a movie using an innocence to experience theme.

One way to look for theme is to watch how the main character changes and then look for similar changes in other characters. Pets and monsters count as characters as do computers and robots. And elves and dwarves. Not sure about zombies and vampires. Does going from dead to undead count as a character change?

The main theme in Hags, my new horror story, is forgiveness. As in real life, you meet a lot of characters who are hurting. They have to learn how to forgive. Some do, some don’t and some are just flat out evil. So what’s a hero to do? Forgive the forgivable and kill the evil guys? Or refuse to forgive the really wicked deeds of the past?

Read Hags for Free Now
Download Hags for free this week only from Amazon for your Kindle reader by clicking here.

Don’t have a Kindle reader? Download the free version for your computer or smart phone from Amazon by clicking here.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Why Give Hags Away?

You can read Hags for free on your Kindle as a result of my three goals:

Spread the word: By giving Hags away free for five days, I’m hoping you’ll enjoy it so much that you’ll tell your friends and family about it.

Generate Amazon reviews: If you enjoy reading Hags, I invite you to let other readers know about it by posting a review on Amazon.

Establish a baseline for future novel marketing: This is my first big book giveaway and I’m curious to know how many books to expect people to download during the five-day giveaway. And I want to know if the giveaway produces any kind of sales bounce following the giveaway period as a result of publicity and word-of-mouth advertising. How many books can I expect to have downloaded from Amazon in five days? Is a hundred reasonable? How about five hundred or a thousand? How about several thousand? I’ve heard of people giving away thousands of books through this kind of promotion. The good news is you can follow my success on my business blog by clicking here. (If you are reading this after the week of October 8-12, 2012, you'll have to click on those dates on my business blog.)

Read Hags for Free Now
Download Hags for free this week only from Amazon for your Kindle reader by clicking here.

Don’t have a Kindle reader? Download the free version for your computer or smart phone from Amazon by clicking here.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

How Scary Is Your World?

The world says, “What you can’t see can’t hurt you.” But it’s the scary invisible things that haunt your soul and keep you from the life you deserve. My new horror novel, Hags, takes you on a journey through this invisible world.

Hags is set in one of the most normal of normal places, assuming there is such a thing as normal. The location is Naperville, Illinois, an upscale small city located in the heart of Chicago’s western suburbs.  It’s a real place that I populate with unreal characters ranging from an unlikely ex-con hero to a couple of hags as dangerous as any from the Middle Ages.

What evil lurks in the hearts of people (to paraphrase an old radio show)? For one of my characters, it’s life as a mad serial killer. But wait, why stop at one mad serial killer when you can have two? Let’s mix in a demon posing as a faerie to go along with the hags and you have the makings of mayhem, murder and worse in Naperville, Illinois. Let’s add in a little romance… okay, maybe more than a bit and…

But instead of telling you about the book at length, why not read it for yourself. For free.

The big giveaway
This is DAY 1 of my FIVE-DAY GIVEAWAY. You read that right. I’m giving away my new novel, Hags, on Amazon.com for free for five days. Download it now for your Kindle reader by clicking here. Don’t have a Kindle? You can download the free version for your computer or smart phone from Amazon by clicking here.

Free reading device software. Free novel. Nothing scary about a giveaway. But what about my new novel? Better leave the lights on when you read Hags. It’s scary horror suspense in my unique mix of noir and humor. Enjoy.

Are You Reading Beyond Plot?

Everyone loves to read for the plot. How many times do you hear someone say, “Don’t tell me the ending; you’ll spoil it?” But there is so much more to a story. The more you know what to look for in a story, the more you will get out of it.  And the more you will benefit from your reading experience. Enjoy the plot as you read your free copy of Hags next week, but while you’re at it, look for these other attributes of a good novel:

Theme: A good story has a point to it. In horror stories and other thrillers or fantasy fiction, the theme is often innocence to experience. The movie, Super8, is a good example of an innocence to experience theme. What’s cool about Super8 is the monster also goes through an innocence to experience event, particularly in the backstory.

Interesting Characters: A character has to go through an event or series of events that change his or her life. Learning has to take place. The cool thing about following the main character is you can learn the same thing the character is learning through the character’s experience.

Style: Style is about two things. One is the way the author plays with or uses the language. Style is also about how the author tells a story, the way the plot is put together. For a quick study on style, watch an Alfred Hitchcock movie and then a James Bond movie. Both movies are in the suspense or thriller genre, but with very different styles. Hitchcock stories tend to build slowly with a touch of humor. Bond movies move at a breakneck pace from start to finish. Bond humor is flippant. Hitchcock humor is subtle.  What other differences do you notice?

Pacing: As you move through the story, notice when the story picks up speed or slows down at times. The fast pace emphasizes or highlights the danger and action of the plot. The author slows the pace down to emphasize character and scene.

Consistency with Genre Rules: The genre or type of story you enjoy reading has basic rules. A mystery story is always about a crime that happened either in the past or at the beginning of the story. Otherwise, it’s a thriller if the crimes are still happening. Romance novels always have a happy ending. Otherwise it’s a literary story or love story, but not a romance. The more you know about the genre you enjoy reading, the more you can appreciate how the author plays with the rules to create a unique reading experience.

Get Hagged
Mark your calendar for October 8th through October 12th to download your free Kindle copy of Hags, my new horror novel. And if you just can’t wait, you can download a pre-launch copy right now for only $2.99 by clicking here.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

The Real Naperville, Setting for Hags

My new novel, Hags, takes place in Naperville, Illinois, located in the far west suburbs of Chicago. Naperville is a city of 141,853 people according to the 2010 Census. The median age is 35. Micah Probert, the main character, fits right in at age 38 when the story begins. Median annual family income is more than $117,000, quite a bit more than what Peevy O’Malley, Micah’s ex-girlfriend, earns as a barista. Naperville takes up 38.77 square miles of DuPage County. According to Money Magazine, Naperville is one of the five best cities in the United States to live.

Where is Bob’s Coffee Emporium?
A lot of the action takes place in Bob’s Coffee Emporium, a fictional coffee shop. As such, it exists within the covers of my novel. However, I pictured it on the southeast corner of Main and Jefferson in downtown Naperville. At the time of this writing, a Starbucks sits on that space. It’s smaller than my vision of Bob’s but it’s nice to know you can find a cup of coffee if you visit the neighborhood.

Micah’s fixer upper
If you walk north on Main Street from Starbucks about two blocks, you’ll find where Micah owned his fixer upper house. Denise Appleby owned the house next door. At one time there actually were two rather dilapidated houses on the block, but they were torn down years ago to make way for new construction.

Get Hagged
Mark your calendar for October 8th through October 12th to download your free Kindle copy of Hags, my new horror novel. And if you just can’t wait, you can download a pre-launch copy right now for only $2.99 by clicking here.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Time to Join a Writer’s Group?

The Write Time Writer’s Group meets in Geneva, Illinois, a couple of times a month. We’re not your usual writer’s group, but that should come as no surprise given the makeup of our members. We operate as a writer’s support group following a formula instituted by our founder and past leader, noted author John Kador, who has since moved on to my old neck of the woods in Pennsylvania.

As a support group, we are not focused on critiquing, although we will critique when asked. Instead, our focus is on discussing the craft and writing. We do speed writing exercises using prompts. Each exercise takes about three or four minutes during our meetings.

How well does this type of writer’s group work? I have seen writers move from a vague hobby interest to become excellent writers. One of members has been picked up by the premier agent representing authors in the sci-fi genre. Another writer has had negotiations with a Hollywood agent representing script writers. Several members are indie-published authors. We have a published poet. One of our past members has achieved national recognition for her published poetry. We have a professional editor in the group who helps to keep our grammar on track.

Sound interesting? The Write Time Writer’s Group is a free writer’s group. If you live within a reasonable commute of Geneva, Illinois, contact me about joining.

Get Hagged
Only five days until the launch of my new novel, Hags, on October 8, 2012 with a five-day free giveaway of the Kindle version. Mark your calendar for October 8th through October 12th to download your free copy. And if you just can’t wait, you can download a pre-launch copy right now for only $2.99 by clicking here.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Are You Ready to be Hagged?

Is the lady living next door to you really the gorgeous sweetheart she appears to be? Is she 28 or 128? Welcome to the secret world of Hags, where people are not who they at first appear to be.

In this horror-thriller set in Naperville, Illinois, you’ll meet a demon masquerading as a faerie, complete with gossamer wings. You’ll greet Bob, the diminutive owner of Bob’s Coffee Emporium. And there’s Peevy O’Malley, the 300-pound barista who hates all men because of Micah Probert. Be sure to say hello to Peevy’s evil sister, Janice O’Malley. And no visit to Hags is complete without introducing yourself to Lionel Langdon, the principal of the local high school who twists new meaning from the expression, “Your principal is your pal, young lady.” And I'll introduce you to… but why spoil the tale?

As with all my stories, you’ll meet a group of characters slightly askew of normal, including a few who are too weird and evil to mention in a blog post. And you’ll find some of their innocent victims, the young ladies of Naperville, Illinois. Leave the lights on because this horror story is better than caffeine.

Hags launches October 8, 2012 with a five-day free giveaway of the Kindle version. Mark your calendar for October 8th through October 12th to download your free copy. And if you just can’t wait, you can download a pre-launch copy right now for only $2.99 by clicking here.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Announcing Hags

This Present Darkness meets The Blair Witch Project in my new novel Hags. After 15 years in prison for a rape he says he didn’t commit, Micah Probert returns to his hometown of Naperville, Illinois, where he starts his first day by discovering a human-sized faerie flitting about in his backyard, a dead body in the parking lot behind his house, a pioneer ghost in his kitchen, and a local coffee shop that serves the darkest roast this side of Hades. It’s in this coffee shop that his ex-girlfriend from high school now works and where he runs into her sister, the victim in Micah’s long ago rape trial.

But the real action begins when Micah learns that the beautiful young woman living next door to his fixer-upper, the girl he has just started dating, may actually be a witch as wicked as any from medieval times. Mix in a few dark secrets, a serial killer or two, a hot romance or two, and this novel takes you deep into the heart of horror in the suburbs. Will Micah heed the call to spiritual warfare with the evil forces mounted against him in time to save the city of Naperville? And will he discover the secret identity of the second hag who is out to destroy him?

To celebrate the launch of Hags, I’m planning to give away the Kindle version for free for five days. This five-day giveaway is my way to share my writing with as many readers as possible. I’m hoping you’ll enjoy reading Hags so much that you’ll help me spread the word about my new novel. As I’m sure you’re aware, this type of BUZZ is essential to generating interest, book reviews and sales. I should have the date finalized for the giveaway so I can announce it in the next day or two. If I don’t run into any glitches, the five-day giveaway will begin next Monday, October 8, 2012.

In the meantime, if you haven’t read my first indie novel, Fulfillment, it’s still available. You may click here for the Amazon Kindle version or click here for the paperback. Fulfillment is the Christmas story as pure suspense, thriller, horror, mystery, romance and spiritual warfare. Satan is out to stop the first Christmas by attacking Mary, a pregnant teenager with moxie and connections in high places. Keep your lights on.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Asking the Wrong Question

Asking what happens next is the wrong question because it focuses on plot. You will read for plot because it's too big to miss. But by taking your eye off the question of "what happens next" in favor of "how is the character changing," you’ll find new meaning and enjoyment from reading fiction. Some readers prefer to read for plot the first time through a novel and then go back later to read for the character development or character arc of the story. Others will read for the character arc from the outset, knowing the plot is not going away.

Character arc is all about how the author moves the character through a learning process. As the character learns, so do you. The plot is a device for making the transition enjoyable for you as a reader.

One way to begin thinking more about character arc is to read for the way the character exists at the beginning of the story and then observing how the character is at the end of the story. How is the character different? What were some of the changes the character went through? Here are some things to look for at the beginning of the story and the end.

Increase innocence at the beginning of the story
In order to make a strong character arc, an author may revise their first draft of the story to bring more emphasis to the character arc. One way to do this is to make the character more innocent or naive at the beginning of story.

One device, used in quest-type stories, is to have a wisdom character speak with the main character. The main character denies the truths offered by the wisdom character only to learn later that it’s the wisdom character’s advice that saves the day. Or the author may have two or more young characters mock the wisdom character. Think teenage angst story where the high school students mock their English teacher only to learn later that the lesson the teacher was trying to impart holds the secret of solving the biggest challenge in the plot of the story.

Add experience and wisdom at the end of story
The author will emphasize the completion of the character arc by adding dialogue or action at the end of the story to allow the character to express new-found wisdom resulting from the journey. The innocent teenager, who started out on the road trip fifty short chapters ago, ends up becoming the wisdom character for a middle school sibling who, of course, doesn’t listen and could care less. Or the author may simply have the character reflect back on the now completed journey.

When you read a good story, you can’t possibly miss the plot. It jumps out and bites you. And if it doesn’t, the story becomes the one you put down unfinished. Don’t worry about the plot. Instead, stay focused on the main characters. Read to learn where they are headed, what experiences they are having, what information they are learning, and how they are growing. Enjoy.

For your next novel read, may I suggest Fulfillment? You can read a chunk of it free. You may click here for Amazon Kindle or click here for paperback. Fulfillment is the Christmas story as pure suspense, thriller, horror, mystery, romance and spiritual warfare. Satan is out to stop the first Christmas by attacking Mary, a pregnant teenager with moxie and connections in high places. Keep your lights on.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Read for the Way Authors Change Characters

The more you know about the craft of writing, the more you gain from reading a novel. For many readers, it’s enough to discover what happens in the story. The problem with an action focus is you miss the movement of the characters through a learning process.

You will enjoy the story more if you read for the character arc. Story is about the characters. The plot is merely a device for moving the characters from where they are to where the author wants them to go. Authors can use any number of devices to move the character through an arc, including:

Plot – the events of the story. The plot is the journey. The author places the characters in situations that force change. Every scene requires the characters to adjust in some way as they react to what is happening around them. Even if the modification is as simple as learning one new fact, the character has transformed in some way. As you read, look for the way the action affects the characters.

Hook – a device the author uses to keep you interested in the story. It’s the cliff hanger ending to a chapter that makes you want to keep reading. Authors use hooks at the beginning and end of every scene and sometimes in the middle of scenes. The action of the hook forces change on the story. Such adjustments force the characters to grow or weaken to form the up and down sides of the character arc.

Forced events – plot again. Characters change when they must to survive. The author positions the character in a situation of kill or be killed. When the character works up the gumption to pull the trigger, she is changed forever (so is the villain, but that’s another character arc – one that the author just ended). Gaining knowledge can make the character tougher, meaner, harder or more cynical as in noir fiction. Or, despite the awful things happening around the character, new experiences and knowledge can lead to an understanding of how to stay optimistic in a sometimes cruel world as happens in many romance stories. When a bad thing happens, you have a choice: either you live in a hard, cruel world… or you live in a world where bad things sometimes happen to spoil an otherwise good life. Which way does the author take the character?

How does the way the author changes the characters affect you as a reader? If you read only for the action, you'll still be influenced by the author's choices in creating the character arc for each major character. But you may not be aware of how the story is affecting you other than a vague feeling. But if you follow the character arc, while still enjoying the action, you gain a better understanding of how the story affects you so that you can answer questions like:

• How does the genre you like to read affect you? Do you become more cynical as you read noir stories? Or do you become more romantic as you read romance stories? 
• Why are you drawn to read the genre of novels you enjoy most? 
• Does the author create a reality consistent with your evolving worldview? 
• How does the author undermine your worldview? This can happen when an author gives a noir drama a happy ending, for example. Or the romance author ends a novel with a growing cynicism in the main character.

As you read your next novel, look for the main character’s response to the events of the story. The character's response is more important than the event itself. Character is more important than plot because the lessons of the story are within the characters, not the plot.

For your next novel read, may I suggest Fulfillment? You can read a chunk of it free. You may click here for Amazon Kindle or click here for paperback. Fulfillment is the Christmas story as only Paul R. Lloyd can tell it: pure suspense, thriller, horror, mystery, romance and spiritual warfare. Satan is out to stop the first Christmas by attacking Mary, a pregnant teenager with moxie and connections in high places. Noir-style action designed to keep your lights on.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Are You Missing the Best Part of the Story?

For many readers, the story is all about the plot. They want to know what happens. The danger with a plot focus is you become so busy following the action that you miss the most important part of the tale. You will enjoy the story more if you read for the character arc. Story is about the characters. The plot is merely a device for moving the characters from where they are to where they need to be.

What is character arc?
Character arc is the journey the character is on as he or she moves through the plot. Like real people, characters are at a particular place in their development as human beings (or cyberborgs if you, like YA author Karen T. Smith, prefer sci-fi). And like most of us, fiction characters don’t change unless some outside event kicks them in the butt and gets them started. If you want the character to leave home, kill off the parents. If you want the character to take a cross-country trip, fire them from their job and kick them out of their apartment.

See how the action or plot of the story is dictated by the author's desire to move the character forward? While many readers focus on the murder of the parents or the start of a road trip, the real adventure has to do with how the events of the story change the character.

While you’re focusing on the main character, keep an eye on the other characters. What are the characters like at the start of the story? How do they change along the journey? How are they different at the end of the story compared to the beginning?

For a story rich in character, read my novel Fulfillment. You can read a chunk of it free. You may click here for Amazon or click here for paperback. Fulfillment is the Christmas story as only Paul R. Lloyd can tell it: pure suspense, thriller, horror, mystery, romance and spiritual warfare. Satan is out to stop the first Christmas by attacking Mary, a pregnant teenager with moxie and connections in high places. Fiction designed to keep your lights on.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Do You Care If the Novel You’re Reading Is Self-Published or Published?

Often readers, including many experts, mistakenly believe published novels are automatically better than self-published novels when the opposite is often true. The reality is published books offer you, the reader, no advantage over self-published books.

Publishers claim they vet their books, which is true, but serious self-published authors also vet their books, often to more rigorous standards than publishing houses.

Publishing house vetting typically includes the assigning of an editor to work with the author. Self-published authors have their books reviewed by their critique groups made up of other writers and authors. Some self-published authors even hire their own professional editors to polish their books. So which would you prefer to read: a book polished by a publishing house editor or a committee of other writers?

Published novels are usually available in bookstores, but for new authors, the book is only available for a very limited time, usually only a few weeks. Self-published authors have a difficult time gaining access to book stores, but they can do it by jumping through some hoops. But what difference does this make to you, the reader, if you purchase your books online at Amazon or other online book dealer?  Often, the self-published book is significantly less costly than a published book.

So how do you decide which to purchase? The easiest way to choose which book to read next is to read the first chapter. This is easy to do in a bookstore because the book is right there in front of you on the shelf. Online shoppers can usually read the first chapter on Amazon or other website.

Many readers make their purchase decision based on the first sentence or first paragraph of the story. Does the author grab your attention? Do you care about the story from the beginning?

Authors of thrillers and other fast-paced stories know they have to start with high action. If it’s not on page one of the story, they know readers will move on to another novel.

If you prefer more laid-back stories, such as a romance, cozy mystery or certain literary fiction, then you want to give the author space to set the stage of the story. But even with slower-paced novels, the author should grab your attention on page one with the poetry of the description or with interesting dialogue or whatever it is that works for you in these kinds of stories.

Bottom line: If you don’t like page one, you’re not likely to enjoy reading the rest of the novel. And reading the first chapter allows you to judge the book before you purchase based on your own tastes and preferences – without regard to whether the novel is published by a publishing house or directly by the author.

Read the first chapter of my novel Fulfillment free. You may click here for Amazon or click here for paperback. It's the Christmas story as only Paul R. Lloyd can tell it: pure suspense/thriller, horror, mystery, romance and spiritual warfare. Satan is out to stop the first Christmas by attacking Mary, a pregnant teenager with moxie and connections in high places. Fiction designed to keep your lights on.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

What is Point of View?

Point of View (POV) is the choice the author makes in determining who will tell the story. Will the story work best if told by a narrator who is not a character or from the perspective of one ore more of the characters?

First person stories – “I” stories – are told as if one of the characters in the story is telling what happened. “I woke up with a headache and headed for the drug store.”

“He” or “she” stories are told either from the narrator’s point of view or one of character’s viewpoints.

The omniscient narrator viewpoint allows the narrator to see all and tell all. It’s the style story teller’s often use when telling a ghost story around a campfire. “It was a dark and stormy night when two teenagers parked out at the old abandoned mansion…”

This style of storytelling allows the author, as narrator, to inject himself or herself into the story to offer an opinion or to express a reaction to the story. Some readers and critics find author intrusion annoying. The literary term is didactic. The big thing to keep in mind is the narrator acts like a god because the narrator sees all, hears all, and may tell all.

There is a softer version of this type of story in which the narrator is less intrusive. The author tells the story from the viewpoint of a single character, like the “I” story, but uses “he” or “she” style writing. “Bob Shay woke up with a headache. He headed for the drug store.”

In this type of story the author parks an imaginary movie camera on top of the head of one of the characters and records what goes on as the character goes through his or her day. This type of writing limits the story to what one character sees, hears, smells, tastes and feels. In some stories, the author moves the camera from one character’s head to another character’s head so you get more than one viewpoint.

Do you have a preference when it comes to POV?

POV is an important component of all stories, including my novel Fulfillment. You may click here for Amazon or click here for paperback. It's pure suspense/thriller, horror, mystery, romance and spiritual warfare told mainly from the POV of Mary, a pregnant teenager with moxie and connections in high places.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

What Is a Story Hook?

What is it about a novel that grabs your attention and makes you want to keep reading? Why do you choose one book over another? Authors call it the “hook.” Hooking begins with the front cover where you see the title and the author’s name. If you heard of the author, the name alone may hook you into reading the book. Authors like Stephen King and Dean Koontz fall into this category.

How about the title? Does it snag your attention? It should. It was created to grab your interest like a newspaper headline. The other “hook” on the front cover of a paperback novel is the cover art. Creative cover art leads you to turn the page to learn more.

The title of my novel, Fulfillment, raises questions about what is being fulfilled. We all want to achieve some level of fulfillment, so this must be a story where someone achieves it, right? But the cover also tells you that it is a suspense novel so you know something evil or bad is afoot. The image of a baby in the womb strikes you. And there’s that tiny barely there cross casting its long shadow onto the baby. Is this a novel about Jesus or Christians in some way? Maybe it’s about the fulfillment of a prophecy of some sort. But what prophecy? There’s only one way to find out.

You’re hooked.

Okay, you checked out the cover, and if you’re in a bookstore (remember those?), you checked out the back cover copy, all of which is written to hook you into reading the book. So now you open the book. You read the blurb on the inside of the cover that describes the story. More hooks there. Next, you’re on page one, chapter one. You read the first sentence. What do you think? Do you want to keep reading or does the story sound dopey? 

The first sentence should grab your attention and lead you to the second sentence… and the third. You want to know more. What’s this story all about? The first sentence has to be a big hook. The other big hook, usually on page one of chapter one, is what’s called the “inciting incident.” This is the big hook that makes you want to read the entire book to find out what happens or whodunit. If it’s not on page one, it’s usually somewhere in chapter one.

My novel Fulfillment begins: A loud roar shook the house.

Who or what roared? How can a roar shake a house? What kind of house? Whose house? What does the house look like? Read on and find out if you’re hooked.

The inciting incident, as the name implies, is the action or situation that starts the story. For example, a young couple stops at a remote motel late one night. Once settled in their room, the vampire makes her appearance. The inciting incident is the vampire’s appearance. Usually, the author will be a bit more subtle. The inciting incident will be the wife’s disappearance. Or the car breaks down and they have to stop at a nearby farmhouse for help. The farmhouse looks haunted. Is it? What’s that sound the husband just heard? The wife missed it, but something went bump in the night. From this beginning event, the story is off and running.

Notice that the incident that starts the story raises all sorts of questions. What went bump? Is that house really haunted or just old and dilapidated? Why did the car break down? Can they get it going again or do they have to call for road service? Will their cell phones pick up a signal out here in the middle of nowhere? We know something is going to happen because it is a novel after all, isn’t it? But what? Read on and find out. Oops, you’re hooked.

In Fulfillment, the first sentence describes an event that precedes the inciting incident. The actual inciting incident doesn’t appear until later in chapter one when an angel shows up to deliver a message to the main character. And the inciting incident isn’t the angel’s message, as powerful as it is. Rather it’s the main character’s response to the message that starts the story.

The inciting incident alone doesn’t keep you reading, but it helps. The other thing that keeps you reading is the cliff hanger. That’s the hook at the end of the chapter or the bottom of a page or the end of a scene that makes you want to know more. You can’t put the book down because something awful just happened or is about to happen and you have to know what happens next.

The cliff hanger combines with the opening hook. The first sentence of a chapter or scene makes you want to know more by raising a question or issue in the story. The author wants you to think, “Oh crap, now what’s wrong?” Something is preventing the main character from achieving her goal. What is she going to do? Read the chapter or scene and find out because you’re hooked.

For an example of this double hooking, I end chapter 17 of Fulfillment with the following paragraph:

Into Joseph’s carpenter shop floated a horde of shadowy invisibles to join their compatriots hanging from the ceiling. This new group dripped saliva and panted as they hungered for the lifeblood of a man’s soul.

What do you think? Do you want to know more? I begin the next chapter with this paragraph:

In the darkness, a thousand demons swore insults at Joseph. A million more hurled blasphemies as heavy as boulders upon his body. Yet another million hurled spears and arrows of regret, remorse, sadness, and loneliness.

Hooks grab your attention so that you want to know more. They make the story exciting. Hooks are important to the author because they don’t really want you to put the book down. We’re afraid you’ll never pick it back up. Hooks are important to you as a reader because they increase the excitement of the story and make you want to know more. Keep reading stories that grab your attention and hold it until the words “THE END.”

Want to know more about Fulfillment, click here for Amazon or click here for paperback. It's pure suspense/thriller, horror, mystery, romance and spiritual warfare.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Reading Genre Fiction in a Multi-Genre World

Writing single genre fiction is fine as far as it goes, but the reality is we live in a world of mixed genre. While this may be inconvenient to traditional publishers and the few remaining brick and mortar bookstores, it’s a fact of life. Art imitates life where our lives have a certain amount of mystery, romance, history, and occasional flights of fantasy. Mixing genres in fiction enriches the tale and helps the reader place the story in the familiar.

While literary fiction is less about the story and more about the characters and why people do what they do, genre fiction is about plot. Read genre fiction because you enjoy certain types of stories like sci-fi, romance, mystery, or thriller.

But keep in mind that the stories you enjoy most will have a literary quality to them. The author went deeper than will be obvious when reading for the plot alone. A second or third reading will reveal theme, creative structure, word plays, character foils and other literary devices that make the book more enjoyable with each reading.

Literary is less about the story and more about the characters and why people do what they do.

Genre fiction is about what happens next in a certain type of story. Read genre fiction because you enjoy stories in the genre – sci-fi, romance, mystery, and thriller.

And speaking of thrillers, please consider Fulfillment, click here for Amazon or click here for paperback. It's pure suspense/thriller, horror, mystery, romance and spiritual warfare.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Reading Quality Writing

The challenge in calling some novels “literary” and some novels “genre” is novelists by their nature aspire to a certain level of literary quality. One of the challenges with quality fiction is it becomes difficult to fit a good tale into the confines of a single, simple genre. A good murder mystery also has a great romance, for example. Or a thriller turns on a new scientific breakthrough pushing the story into the sci-fi category. Fantasy writers have no problem mixing horror, suspense, romance, sci-fi, mystery or any other genre into a single story.

Mixing genres is not a sign of good writing, per se, but it does make it difficult for the writer of an excellent mixed genre story to have their work accepted by traditional publishing houses. That’s because traditional publishers think in terms of book sales. They want to know on which shelf to tell the bookstore owner to place their book. So a mystery story is about a mystery in their eyes. They don’t want a lot of other genres muddying the marketing waters.

For this reason, the better genre writers often end up self-publishing their work because it simply does not fit into a nice little single genre definition. Now, you may argue that writing single genre fiction is a discipline and the best writers master it the way a poet masters the sonnet form. And many single genre authors are producing excellent fiction. Dashiell Hammett is one such example whose work is considered classic in the mystery genre. And you not only would be correct, you also would be describing an easier path to traditional publication.

But in your admiration of pure form, don't miss out on the great works of a mixed genre sort to be found in the world of self-publishing. The best way to identify quality in any book, whether traditional or self-published is to read the first chapter. I usually make my decision with the first sentence. If I can walk away from the story after reading the first sentence, the novel isn't for me.

And speaking of tales worth reading, please consider my suspense/thriller novel Fulfillment, click here for Amazon or click here for paperback. It's pure suspense/thriller, horror, mystery, romance and spiritual warfare. Self-publishing at its best even if it is published by PromiseGarden.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Literary fiction is… well… literary

Authors of literary fiction focus on the art of writing as the main interest of the author and the reader. Literary artists write novels that have plot, but they are more concerned about creating a sort of onion effect. The more you read the story, the more you discover. As you peel away one layer of story, say the plot, you find a second story built around the theme. Read the story once for what happens. Go back to ask why. Another reading gets you thinking about how the author created such a beautiful, cohesive whole. You may enjoy the way the author developed the character as the story moved forward. The main character goes through a big change of some sort. Literary stories may or may not have a beginning, a middle and an end.

One example of an artistic onion layer can be found in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. Read the novel a few times and you begin to see that all the characters equate to bulls or cows of one sort or another. That’s why the author spends so much time telling you about bullfighting and the different types of bulls. Gaining that understanding from a single reading is difficult. Knowing it helps to make the story come together for you.

Meanwhile… back to suspense/thriller novels
Serious writers of suspense/thriller novels or other genre fiction will tell you they do the same thing literary novelists do in creating character depth and layers of artistic merit. And they will point out that most literary authors actually write genre fiction. For example, Charles Dickens, if not the first author of a murder mystery novel, was certainly an early adapter of the genre. So what’s the difference for you as a reader?

The first rule is to find novels you enjoy. Read other novels written by the same author or authors. If you enjoy the classics, you may enjoy modern authors who pride themselves in writing “literary” novels. If you enjoy murder mysteries, read them.

The point is simply this: the better authors invest themselves in developing the literary quality of their work as well as entertaining you with a good plot. “Literary” authors generally are not concerned as much about plot as they are character and literary tradition. They mainly write for themselves as artists. They trust that literary readers will find their work.

Genre authors emphasize telling a compelling story within their genre to entertain their readers. Their stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. They know how to develop a character so you can empathize with her. They know how to make you weep or laugh. They are not afraid to kill off a character, but also recognize there are consequences to their actions. They know how to make you want to turn the page, something literary authors are less concerned about.

Read literary novels when you enjoy an author who plays with the language, writes poetically and provides insights into philosophy and why the world works the way it does. Read genre fiction when you want to enjoy a good tale well told.

And speaking of tales worth telling, please consider my suspense/thriller novel Fulfillment, click here for Amazon or click here for paperback.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

What kind of novels do you read?

Remember the bride’s rhyme: “Something Olde, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue, A Sixpence in your Shoe?” Novels are like this. You have lots of options. Most readers of fiction I know focus on reading one type of novel. But some like to mix it up. They’ll read a classic (something old) followed by the latest best seller (something new). They’ll switch from suspense to mystery to sci-fi to romance to literary to whatever captures their fancy.

No matter what kind of novel you prefer, you’ll bring more enjoyment, knowledge and understanding to your reading if you mix your novel choices on occasion.

Novels fall into two main categories: literary and genre. Genre fiction is what most of us read. Genre includes… well… all the genre types such as romance, suspense/thriller, science fiction, fantasy, and mystery. Bookstores, if you can still find one, organize their shelves by genre.

Read literary novels when you enjoy an author who plays with the language, writes poetically and provides insights into their philosophy of life and why the world works the way it does. Literary novelists dive deeper into the emotional storms of life to explore the passions that motivate us to action. Literary fiction builds on the tradition behind it so the more you know about the American novel, for example, the more you gain from reading it. Same is true for the English novel or South American novel. The literary tradition provides a wealth of novels to explore and enjoy.

As you consider your next novel purchase or library visit, consider following the bridal advice by choosing “Something Olde, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue, A Sixpence in your Shoe.”

And while you're choosing, please consider my suspense/thriller novel Fulfillment, click here for Amazon or click here for paperback.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Three Steps to Murder

My current series of blog posts is focused on how to read a suspense novel rather than how to write one. Today, let’s look into the way an author goes about the business of offing a character. There’s no one correct way, of course, but for what it’s worth, here’s how I go about the writing process when I want to dispatch a character in one of my novels:

Step 1. I become a method actor and play the role of the killer. What's the killer's motivation? What's the killer's back story? Is the killer ex-military? Ex-police? A drug-crazed psychopath? Is the murder a planned execution or a crime of passion? The weapon comes out of the character's back story and motivation. Where does the murder take place? The killer in a crime of passion finds his or her weapon at the scene usually because there is no premeditation. The exception is a case like the O.J. Simpson trial where the killer clearly premeditated his or her actions by bringing a knife to the scene. In this case, you would want your character to have extreme anger issues and a history of violent behavior.

Step 2. I describe the scene as a dark place. Even in the bright sunshine of a usually happy place, I look for ways to describe the scene as dark. If the killer strikes on the fifth fairway of a golf course on a sunny Saturday afternoon, I bring in an unexpected cloud cover. I kill off some bushes or trees so the place starts to look like a graveyard. I have the groundskeeper neglect this particular fairway so it's weedy and overgrown in spots. Nobody replaces their divots on this fairway. The idea is to make the reader feel the darkness.

Step 3. I focus on moving the plot forward and hooking the reader to want to continue. While learning "Whodunit" is usually sufficient reason to turn the page, I might break the scene just before the crime. Or I might break the scene with the reader knowing the crime was committed but not certain the victim died. Or do something to make the reader want to know more. I want the reader to go: "Huh, is that it? There has to be more. Oh, wait. Look, there is more. There's another chapter."

Choose your weapon
Unless you are making the weapon a kind of character or important plot device like the yellow Rolls Royce in the film "The Yellow Rolls Royce" (sorry, couldn't think of a new movie), the weapon isn't important but the reader likes to know specifics. If using a pistol, the reader wants to know not only that it's a Glock, but also which model and why the killer chose that model (it's compact and hides well in your pocket).

You can get that sort of information with a Google search. Since most of the time, the weapon is not as important as the fact that someone got bumped off, the weapon is only important to the investigation, not the crime itself. What does that mean? It means that the candlestick is just as deadly as a well-placed homemade explosive device that required the killer to spend six years in the military perfecting his or her craft. You don't need an exotic weapon to make your story interesting. You need an interesting story that makes the reader want to turn the page. The choice of weapon is at best the icing on the cake, not the cake.

Free weapon ideas: In an episode of Alfred Hitchcock's TV series, the wife murders her husband by clobbering him with a frozen chunk of meat, probably a leg of lamb. She then cooks the lamb and serves it to the investigating police officer. Another great weapon is the ice cycle which is a self-destructing chunk of evidence.

The Literary Weapon
Sometimes the author chooses the weapon because he or she wants the reader to connect the weapon to some larger point the author is trying to make. For example, if I want to convince you that war is evil, I’ll blow up a school filled with children with a misplaced artillery shell. If I want to make a point about the villain’s sexual prowess or lack thereof, I’ll choose a weapon for its phallic import, such as a Bowie knife.  If I want you to think the victim is the true villain, I’ll have the killer hang them or electrocute them or give them a chemical injection. And If I just want to make a mess, I’ll have the victim visit a busy industrial machine shop at the wrong time.

As a reader, consider the author’s intent in picking the weapon. In some cases it’s simply a plot device to remove a character from the stage. But when the author connects the weapon in some additional way to the story, making a symbol of it, you are in for an interesting read beyond the plot itself.

Sometimes to kill off a character, I'll let Satan do my dirty work. To learn more about my suspense novel Fulfillment, click here for Amazon or click here for paperback.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Ever Run Into Yourself?

Here's another Scary Suspense Theater episode. Watch at your own risk. You may see somebody you know.

To learn more about my suspense novel Fulfillment, click here for Amazon or click here for paperback.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Butt Grabbing Stories

What holds your attention when you read a suspense/thriller novel? The suspense keeps you reading, especially when the author deploys grabber hooks that make you turn the page. But what is it beyond the obvious that keeps you reading?

In my last three blog posts, I talked about plot and characters. Look for novels that hold your attention by combining characters you can believe in with a plot filled with suspense, thrills and action. When you care about the people in the story, you keep reading to learn what happens to them. And you keep reading because you enjoy “being with them.” Good characters become like friends or family so you want to hang out with them whenever you can. This is one reason readers like to re-read novels.

Plot holds your attention when something important is at stake for the characters. The characters have to change the world around them in some way such as eliminating the bad guy or the monster. Along the way, the characters change in important ways as they learn lessons from their adventures. You can’t go into the heart of evil without coming out changed in noticeable ways.

As you read your next novel, look for the way the plot interests you and notice how the characters are not the same at the end of the story as they were in the beginning. Think about what happened in the plot that forced the characters to change. Focus on the main character the first time you read the story. Then go back and focus on the other characters.

To learn more about my suspense novel Fulfillment, click here for Amazon or click here for paperback.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Characters make the difference in suspense

Some suspense/thriller stories revolve around famous or important people. Abraham Lincoln has become a vampire slayer, for example. I prefer the stories where ordinary people face extraordinary circumstances. These stories make you feel like, hey, that could be me facing a space alien, psycho killer, vampire, or worse. What would you do? Do you have that deep down intestinal fortitude to jam the stake through the vampire’s heart, after he wakes up?

Characters you can relate to help you enjoy reading the story. It’s one thing for the characters to be sexy like Hollywood stars. These characters are attractive, of course. But the characters that hold your interest are more like your brother or sister. Or the kid next door. Or your cousin Iva from Cleveland. They have acne scars. Their hair never seems quite right. He ought to really just shave the mustache because it doesn’t work for him… or her. Regular just plain folks grab our attention and hold it in ways that Hollywood sex queens cannot.

Main characters usually can be counted on to be reasonably attractive. Otherwise, you wouldn’t keep reading the story. But there also needs to be that element of everyday folk about them. As you’re reading your next suspense/thriller novel, watch for the way the author describes the main character. How does that description attract you to the character? Consider how the author makes the character real for you. Is it the pretty girl’s sexiness? Or is it her lonesome quality because her mother abandoned her at a young age? What makes the character work for you?

To learn more about my suspense novel Fulfillment, click here for Amazon or click here for paperback.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

The Suspense Journey as Quest

Bang, bang, shoot ‘em up adventure… or… Why are The Birds behaving that way? … or I’m your father, Luke.  Or how about… Let’s go to Troy and steal Helen back… or Hey, King Arthur, I bet I can find the Holy Grail if I ride around England long enough… Suspense keeps you on the edge of your seat and turning the page… at least the good ones do. How do authors move you as a reader through the plot of their story?

One common plot device is the quest journey. The quest is a complicated plot form that would require a book to fully explain. As a reader, you can keep it simple. There are three phases to a quest that you should be aware of. The first is the “Let’s get going” phase where something happens to motivate the hero or main character to take off on a journey of discovery. One fun thing to look for in this section is the hero almost always turns down the invitation or is reluctant to go on the journey. Think of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane praying that the Father would remove this cup from him. Or Luke Skywalker telling Obi Won Kanobi that he has to stay home and help his uncle.

The second part of the quest is the journey itself. Sir Gawain heads off in search of the Green Knight. The private eye sets out to find the killer. The boyfriend sets out to find his missing girlfriend last seen at a nearby motel. During this part of the story, our hero keeps running into obstacles, gets beat up and left for dead, or simply loses his or her way until the final, climactic scene.

The final act is the “Ta-Da, We did it!” section. Dorothy and friends kill the wicked witch. Luke turns his father back from the dark side. The private eye figures out whodunit.

The quest is a clean story with a beginning, middle and end. Not all stories work this way. In Hitchcock’s The Birds, the birds attack for no reason to spoil a perfectly good romantic comedy and turn it into a horror story. Instead of a journey of discovery, there is only hiding and running away. And at the end, when you expect that “Ta-Da” moment, there is none. Instead, you’re left with the birds waiting for the right moment to attack again with the main characters trying to escape in a convertible. The Birds works as suspense, although the slow build up at the beginning may be too slow for modern movie goers.

The old movies used a plot device where they built the story slowly until the big crash when the monster is revealed and the movie heads into a roller coaster ending. Today, you are more likely to go straight into the roller coaster just as it starts down that first hill. That old style helped the movie viewer forget that the movie was a thriller in the first place. You hear about the new suspense movie, you buy your ticket and popcorn. You plop down in your seat and find yourself staring at a romantic comedy that’s not particularly comic but you sort of forget that it’s really a suspense horror story until wham the birds strike and you wake up, jump out of your seat, and enjoy the ride.

Bringing this home to the suspense novel, look for elements of the quest in the stories you read. If you spot a reluctant main character in the beginning of the story, chances are you are reading a quest-based plot. If so, you may want to Google “quest story” and learn more about what this method of storytelling is all about. The more you know about the quest, the more you will enjoy your reading and the easier it will be for you to figure out what will happen next before it happens.

To learn more about my suspense novel Fulfillment, click here for Amazon or click here for paperback.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Reading the Quest Story

Suspense/Thriller fiction is often built around the quest. A quest requires the main character to solve a mystery, find something that's missing or solve a problem. The quest teaches the main character something about life so that he or she is a new person at the end. My video goes into this topic.

To learn more about my suspense novel Fulfillment, click here for Amazon or click here for paperback.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Not Exactly Hardboiled Noir

In noir fiction, you have a fatally flawed main character who ends up dead or worse. The writing is cynical and dark. Most of my fiction gives you the hard hitting, cynical style of a noir drama, but my stories end up in a good place. It’s not possible for a noir story to have a happy ending, so my novels are not true noir.

So why bring this up?
Noir fiction tells a compelling story about life’s losers and ne’er-do-wells. My characters pass through a loser phase but then find redemption. I’m taking the loser and saving his soul by dragging him or her through some muddy places.

I like to lighten the mood with humor. In Fulfillment, humor relieves the tension in an otherwise dark world of the first century C.E. In Faerie Tale, which I’ll release this summer, humor again provides the necessary relief from a frightening world.

In my current work in progress, which shall remain unnamed for the moment, I’m using a heavy amount of humor to the point where I may lose the deep noir darkness, but I’ll keep some of the gray tones. So you may say that I’ll be reversing the style from noir with a touch of humor to humor with a touch of noir.

Style distinguishes an author’s work. Once you have read a few novels by the same author you will be able to pick out the author’s writing even if the name is not given. Style is one of things that makes your favorite author your favorite.

To learn more about my suspense novel Fulfillment, click here for Amazon or click here for paperback.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

You Noir What You Noir

In this video I talk about my dark, mysterious "noir" writing style. Enjoy.

To learn more about my suspense novel Fulfillment, click here for Amazon or click here for paperback.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Watch How the Author Deals with Good Vs. Evil

Suspense stories invariably deal with the battle of good versus evil. Modern suspense writers often make it difficult or impossible for the reader to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys. Yet, the conflict of good and evil is at the heart of western literature. The way the author handles the moral conflict indicates how he or she views the world, or at least the world of the story.

Is your vampire good or evil in the book you are reading? What about the terrorist? One country’s terrorist is another country’s national hero. Same is true of the spy. Is King Kong good or evil?

In Alfred Hitchcock’s suspense movies, you can tell the good guys from the bad guys. Hitchcock created his films during an age when making this distinction was important to the art of film making. Today’s film makers and suspense authors seem unconcerned about the moral implications of their work, yet it is impossible for them to leave their moral stamp out of their work.

As a suspense novel reader, you have an opportunity to learn about the moral compass that guides the writer. Understanding the moral climate of a work gives you a deeper insight into the action. You'll gain a better understanding for why the characters behave the way they do. And you'll make better guesses as you try to predict what will happen next.

You also gain a richer reading experience by considering the author's moral viewpoint in light of your own. How does the novel affect your own sense of morality? For example, is it really okay for the main character to cheat on his spouse? Did the main character do the right thing when she blew the villain’s head off with a shotgun in the last scene? Just because a vampire makes a good lover, does that make it right for him to turn his love interest into a vampire?

Considering the moral implications and values reflected in the suspense novels you read helps you evaluate your own moral compass. If the author’s moral viewpoint seems out of kilter with your own, is it your morals or the author's that need adjustment?

To learn more about my suspense novel Fulfillment, click here for Amazon or click here for paperback.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Suspense Often Mixes in Other Genres

As you're reading a suspense/thriller novel, stay alert for elements of other fiction genres. Authors like to mix in their choice of mystery, sci-fi, horror, romance or other genres. Mystery and suspense go hand-in-hand. The main action will be about what happens next in the story, but the characters also may be trying to solve a mystery that occurred in the past. By mixing suspense and mystery, the author creates a sense of foreboding as you worry about whether the killer will strike again. And you worry about which of the characters is the killer.

I like to include an element of romance in my suspense stories as do many of the authors I read. Just because the world is about to explode doesn’t mean you can’t take time out to fall in love. Suspense stories add an element to the romance as you become concerned if the bad guy is going to kill the girl before she realizes he’s the killer. It may be a match made in heaven, but that doesn’t mean the author can’t kill off the young beau before the wedding.

Sci-fi almost always includes a big element of suspense so there’s no reason not to mix a little sci-fi with a suspense novel. A new technology may be the very thing the terrorist needs to blow up New Jersey before the lovers meet on the beaches of Wildwood.

And what would a good suspense story be without a monster? While we’re mixing in the monster, let’s make him a lover like King Kong or your favorite vampire. The werewolf can be a romantic interest during the day and the villain at night. It’s all up to the author. The more mixing and matching of genres and characters, usually the better and richer the story.

To learn more about my suspense novel Fulfillment, click here for Amazon or click here for paperback.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Riding the Suspense Roller Coaster

The suspense or thriller novel builds your anticipation of what will happen next. It succeeds by working on your emotions to build a sense of dread, awe or whatever feeling is appropriate as you anticipate what will happen next in the story. Fear and terror are often involved, but other emotions can come into play as well, such as love as you anticipate two people coming together in a suspense-filled forbidden romance. Worry and anxiety play a big role in thriller stories. The author is free to play with any and all emotions while gearing the reader up for what happens next. 

For example, in the film Psycho, Hitchcock spends a lengthy portion of the movie developing Janet Leigh’s character before killing her off in the infamous shower scene. Why spend so much time on a character who is not the main focus of the film? Hitchcock wants you to be emotionally involved with the murder victim before he kills her off to heighten your reaction to the shower scene. Because you care about Marion Crane (Janet Leigh’s character), you experience a greater sense of terror and a heightened sense of loss when she is murdered.

My novel, Fulfillment, is a suspense yarn woven around the original Christmas story. Have you ever wondered about the young girl chosen to become the mother of Jesus? What was she like? Unlike Hitchcock, I throw her into the muddle with Satan before you get to know her. You’ll learn about her as the story of her war with Satan moves forward to the inevitable birth of Jesus and beyond. For the character of Rachel (“Rachel weeps and will not be comforted”), I spend several chapters developing this delightful young mother just so you can fall in love with her and then experience the depths of her despair when the soldiers arrive.

The idea of the thriller or suspense novel is to take you on an emotional roller coaster ride. If you like roller coasters, watch Psycho or read my novel. Enjoy.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Suspense, Terror, Romance, Oh My!

Writers choose a genre of fiction that works best for them. I focus on suspense/thriller while mixing in elements of other genres. This video covers the types of fiction I blend together to make a story.

To learn more about my suspense novel Fulfillment, click here for Amazon or click here for paperback.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Bag Lady

 Welcome to the return of Scary Suspense Theater featuring a tale from the light side of suspense. Enjoy.

To learn more about my suspense novel Fulfillment, click here for Amazon or click here for paperback.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Character and Plot Work Together

When you read a suspense/thriller novel, which interests you most: plot or character? Today’s action-packed films, TV shows and novels pile action upon action without giving you a pause for a rest. In such stories, do you even have time to think about the characters? Or are you satisfied knowing some girl is in distress and some hunk is about to save her if he can only get past the bad guys? Is the fun in the act of killing the bad guys while taking a beating?

Or do you care that the girl in question is an innocent college freshman kidnapped from her dorm with her roommate? Maybe she has more debt than she can handle and works a part-time job at a coffee shop where she has a crush on the head barista. Do you care that she dresses in conservative attire and reminds people of a latter day Grace Kelly? In the scene where she was kidnapped, were you moved more by the sweet sound of her golden voice singing in the shower or the rough hands of the kidnapper reaching through the curtains to grab her and drag her kicking and screaming away?

Do you care that the hunk out to save this young lady is her father? Do you feel his anguish as he considers what the kidnapper is doing to his daughter and her roommate? Or do you focus on the particular form of eastern fighting technique he learned while serving as a Navy Seal? Are you looking forward to the girl being restored to her life or to the battle between ex-Seal Dad and a handful of drug-crazed kidnappers?

If you’re reading suspense/thriller novels, my guess is your interest is in the plot or action of the story. You want to see how the dad saves his daughter and read the battle scene where dad rescues the girl and kills the bad guys.

Reading suspense/thriller novels rewards you with exciting “what happens next” action. In the first read through, enjoy the action. If you take the time to read the story a second time, stay alert to the characters. Take time to learn who they are. You may discover a second or third story lurking behind the main action. You may find a romance between a sweet young lady and a starving artist barista. Or you may find a touching story about a father’s love for his family despite his years away from home serving his nation in the military. These secondary stories are well worth the reading and breathe life into the main action of the story. It’s one thing to witness the action of daddy saving daughter, but it’s another thing to feel the father’s pain or experience the daughter’s terror in a way that only a friend or family member can.

If someone kidnaps a stranger, that’s news. If someone kidnaps your friend, that’s personal. By focusing on the characters in a second read of a suspense/thriller novel, the story becomes personal.

To learn more about my suspense novel Fulfillment, click here for Amazon or click here for paperback.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Characters Form the Heart of Suspense/Thriller Fiction

If you are like me, the first time through a suspense/thriller novel, you’re focused on the action of the story, also known as the plot. Along the way, you are well aware of the characters and the issues the characters are dealing with because, let’s face it, there is no way to separate plot from character.

You may not want to read every thriller twice, but the ones you enjoy the most are worth a repeat visit. The second time around, focus on the characters rather than the plot. You already know what happens next. Now, you want to go deeper into how the characters are impacted by the action.

Start with the main character
What is the main character’s big problem at the start of the story? In my novel Fulfillment, Mary is a happily engaged teenager with no problem to deal out of the ordinary, thank you very much. But then Satan intervenes in her life which leaves her wondering why so much evil is out to get her? The answer comes from an angel visit, also early in the story. How Mary grows through her experiences on a journey that is both physical and spiritual is at the heart of her personal story. In my forthcoming novel, Faerie Tale, the main character has to fulfill a quest which forms the main action for the story while also growing my main character as a human being. But the supporting cast also grows. For example, Peevy begins the story as a man-hater. Watch how she changes through the story when I release the novel later this spring.

As the story you are reading progresses, look for how the characters solve their problems. One challenge is the main plot in which someone or something is out to cause harm. Look beyond this main plot. What else is an issue for the characters? How does each character deal with their issues? How do they grow or mature as the story progresses? How are the characters different at the end of the story compared to the way they were at the beginning?

In some suspense/thriller stories, the characters don’t go through much of a change. The author is telling a simple action story in which some people have to deal with a monster. That’s it. Story over. This approach is used in some series novels where the main character remains pretty much the same from novel to novel.

The second time you read a novel that is part of a series, look for subtle indications of change. You won’t find many unless the author plans to “grow” the character over the course of the series. Stay alert for mention of things that happened in the main character’s past life before the story began. These little insights tell you more about why the main character behaves the way she or he does.

The novels you really enjoy reading work so well because the author has built more into the story than the plot. By paying close attention to the characters on your second read, you’ll begin to see how the author builds a story that has an appealing complexity to it. This complexity is often compared to an onion where once you peel away one layer of the story, you discover another layer underneath. The more layers you peel off, the more you discover. Look for this depth as read and re-read the book.

To learn more about my novel Fulfillment, click here for Amazon or click here for paperback.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

Reading for Plot

If like me, you’re hardwired for suspense/thriller stories, then you want to know what happens next. Sure you care about the main characters. Will she live or die? Will the boy marry the girl? But that first time around, we’re focused on the monster. How are they going to kill that thing?

Plot-driven fiction concentrates on the action, usually because the action is bigger than life. But all stories have action. All stories have plot. The difference when you read a plot-driven story is your satisfaction comes primarily from the action of the story rather than the changes the characters may undertake during the action.

In suspense/thriller genre fiction, the story opens with something bad happening but the reader isn’t clued in yet as to what the terror is. As the story continues and more bad things happen to good people, the reader realizes who or what the monster is. The characters in the story figure out who the monster is usually about one-third of the way through the novel. Once they know who is doing it, they go about the business of killing the beast. This journey or quest leads to a climactic battle in which the forces of good triumph over evil in the traditional suspense/thriller.

In more recent stories, the “monster” turns out to be not so bad after all. So the author lets the vampire off the hook in Twilight and the space monster gets his space ship back and leaves the earth unharmed in the film Super8. The real "monster" in Super8 isn't the monster at all. It's the air force officer who abuses the monster. But the space monster ends up killing his share of good guys as well as the evil air force officer.

This shift away from good versus evil reflects today’s culture where morality has degenerated into a philosophy based on “it’s all good.” In traditional storytelling, it ain’t "all good." There are good guys and bad guys. The main character’s job is to stop the bad guy. While it's important to understand we are all capable of good and evil actions, suspense/thriller stories work best when the forces of good battle the forces of evil with a clear victory for good. Otherwise the quest fails. Keep in mind suspense/thriller stories are bigger than life with no need to muck around in the depths of sloppy morality.

Read it again, Sam
One of the joys of the second time reading an action-driven story is discovering the characters. For example, in my novel Fulfillment, which is about God versus Satan, Mary starts out as an innocent, fearful young teenage girl. By story’s end, she is a strong woman who protects her infant son from the vilest of evils. In my soon to be released novel, Faerie Tale, an ex-con who has been beaten down by life after a wrongful conviction, grows into the strong, forceful personality well able to take on demonic forces. So just to contradict myself a little bit, mucking around in the depths of sloppy morality can add to the character development in a suspense/thriller story, but the author should tell this story from a moral base firmly rooted in good triumphs over evil.

To learn more about my novel Fulfillment, click here for Amazon or click here for paperback.

Here’s another novel idea…
Enjoy this blog post? Please share it with your friends by clicking the social media buttons below.

New Series: How to Read Suspense

I'm launching a new series of short videos and follow-up commentary for readers of suspense or thriller stories.

Is this you?
You find a book you like. You read it. You enjoy it. You put it on a shelf, toss it, give it away, return it to the library or wrap the fish in it, but your rarely read the novel more than once. Why not? You can learn a lot by reading a novel for the second or third time. For example, you enjoyed the book so much, you couldn't put it down. Ever wonder how the author kept your attention?

Starting with plot and character
The first topic in my series on reading suspense fiction is character-driven fiction versus plot-driven fiction. What's the difference? Why should you care as a reader? Enjoy the video and comment below.

Teen Angst

His eyes slid down the front of her dress and laughed at her knock knees. Then catching himself in the cold stare of her eyes, he said, “I’ve seen that dress somewhere before.”

Caught off guard, she laughed. “You knucklehead, you’ve been going to Saint Philomena’s for eight years. Of course you’ve seen my outfit before. And it’s a jumper, not a dress.”

“Told you I saw it before. But you didn’t wear it like that in first grade.”

“And you didn’t look at me like that in first grade, Billy Branmower.”

“Where’d those little bumps there in front come from?”

Later, after picking himself off the floor of the middle school hallway, he figured he wouldn’t try that last line when he got to ninth grade.

Locked Out of the Car

There they are. Yep. Right there on the seat where I dropped them.

Again.

Okay, don’t panic. Call the wife.

Cell phone.

Well, looky here. Right next to the keys. On seat. The other side of the lock.

Pay phone.

Oh, yeah.

They landfilled them all.

Hello! Hey, lady, can I… Lady. Hey. Yeah. You. Can you help me. No. No. I’m not a pervert. I just want your cell phone. What? No, I don’t think it would fit and ladies shouldn’t talk like that.

Cold. Yep, there’s the coat. On the seat. The one next to the seat with the keys and the cell phone.

Wish that lady would have called a cop.

Store can help. No. Too late. All closed.

Cops patrol. Where’s a donut shop when you need one?

Check Out the Review of My Novel Fulfillment

Annie Parks wrote a terrific review of Fulfillment. Check it out by clicking here. Annie is a great young writer, so I appreciate her insights. Fulfillment is available on Amazon by clicking here.

As a reminder, here is a blurb about the book: Mary lived in happy ignorance. Then in the roar of the beast and the hideous faces of the angry demons scampering across her bedroom floor, she became the central figure in a drama beyond her understanding. Her engagement to Joseph should have been joyful, but instead the secret concerning the baby in her womb attracted evil spirits, a king, soldiers and a would-be lover all bent on destroying her. Mary’s journey, while steeped with betrayal and the foul stench of the ultimate demon, is a setup for an even bigger story. She discovers a lost love found, the promise of a newborn king, and a wealth of new friends from a dwarf with the heart of a warrior to the young mother whose husband and children are murdered in a bloody massacre.

Vampires on the Moon

“Take a deep breath. Okay, now swallow. Notice the difference?”
“Uhmm, we’re back in the caves?”
“Notice the sweet taste? It’s not there topside when we breathe from the air tanks.”
“Being the new guy, you probably don’t know that Matilda Langingfroth makes huge volumes of fudge for the black market.”
“It’s not chocolate you smell.”
“Oh crap. What is it? No, don’t tell me.”
“Vampires.”
“You’ve got to be kidding, right?”
“And you thought the moon was safe? I thought I was the new guy.”
“I didn’t know vampires smelled of chocolate.”
“Only on the moon. Something about the lack of oxygen. Vampires don’t need air, so they muck about over on the dark side. But the lack of oxygen affects their body chemistry. Comes out smelling like chocolate. That’s how you can tell if one is wandering about your human caves to feed.”
“Is that important?”
“It is if you smell chocolate, like now.”
“Why?”
“Vampires. Think about it.”

It Pays to Post

My post to my new writer's group blog was picked up by Everything Speculative Fiction. Check it out. Be sure to scroll to the bottom of page to find me and then click over to The Missing Dhwarven Phaser. In a post today, Karen Smith provides information on a short story contest.

Minimizing Was

I’m at the point in editing my new novel Faerie Tale where I’m searching for the word “was” with the idea of replacing it with an active verb. Here’s one example:

Original: The effect was to make him bend forward while running, pushing his butt up in the process so the second punch hit his right buttock instead of his back or kidney area.

Revision: He bent forward as he ran so the second punch hit his right buttock instead of his back or kidney area.

As a storyteller, I focus on the story itself while writing the first draft knowing I’ll catch the weak constructions during the editing process. Among other things, editing includes searching for weak words and replacing them with stronger writing. Sometimes this means a simple replacement such as replacing “walk” with “saunter.” Other times it involves a total revision of the sentence so the writing matches the power of the tale I’m telling. Editing – it’s not for the faint of heart, but it moves the serious writer farther along the path to excellence.