by

Mary Deal

A scene ends when the action ends or the conversation can add no more to that part of the story. Maybe one scene is in the grocery store; the next scene is outside on the docks. Usually when a huge shift in location happens, you begin a new chapter.

(Don’t try to write a sequel to “My Dinner with Andre” which happened totally in one scene at the dinner table. It’s been done and was successful because the actors were good.)

When you end a scene, leave the reader wondering what could happen next and wanting to read further. It’s called a cliff hanger. Leave something unfinished, like a threat of action yet to happen and we can see one character gearing up to do some dirty work. The reader wonders what could possible happen next? And so they keep turning pages.

Or maybe it’s a romance and you end the scene with two people simply staring into each others’ eyes wondering if they could work as a couple.

When you move to the next scene, jump into the middle of it. Use very little narration to set the scene. Best is to knit the action, narration and dialogue together.

Depending on how you present your story, you do not need to have each new scene be a result of another. In other words, that cute couple I just mentioned are staring into each other’s eyes. You wouldn’t and shouldn’t start you next chapter with them in a new location, still cuddling up to get to know each other. Once you introduce that they are mutually attracted, the next scene (the whole story middle) should have action that pulls them apart. Every couple has baggage to air before they become a couple. Regardless what background or location you place them in, the action must be lively.

Keep the idea of a cliff hanger in mind when you finish your chapters.

Cliff hanger = An exciting hint of things to come; something to make the reader want to know more.

Please visit Mary Deal’s website for more wonderful articles like this one: Write Any Genre.

by

Mary Deal

Want to wake in the morning with more creativity? Then pay attention to what’s on your mind when you fall asleep.

Research has proven that the mind uses its most recent daytime images and thoughts to create dreams. So, too, the mind produces the mood with which you wake after sleeping.

No matter what story you work on, do not think about it as you fall asleep. Instead, before going to bed, do something to put you in a relaxed state. Play some soothing music, preferably without vocals, which can plant new thoughts. Yoga, maybe? Or walking? If you’re one of those people who fall into bed exhausted, then concentrate only on your breathing. Then trust your mind to work on what’s necessary since you’ve put it at ease.

The state you wish to create for your mind is one that you have not directed. The mind knows what’s necessary, better than you know what’s important. Get into the habit of allowing your mind to work for you.

You’ve heard the saying, “I’ll sleep on it.” Then the person goes about doing something else. In the morning, the answer comes. It’s the same principle. Trust your mind. Your writing and creativity will be better for it.

Please visit Mary Deal’s website for more wonderful articles like this one: Write Any Genre.

Talk Uppity

by Mary Deal

Someone once asked, “I was told to write how I speak in order to make my stories conversational. So why can’t I get them published?”

I took a look at that woman’s writing style and it instantly triggered a memory of my own experience.

The language with which we’re most comfortable doesn’t always produce the best writing style.

I grew up among middle-class everyday folk. Language was one thing that separated groups of people as I had come to know them. When I was young, every once in a while I’d hear someone say, “Oh my! She talks so uppity!”

Hearing such remarks from people that I liked made me wonder what uppity might mean. What I heard when those others spoke was language that seemed too proper, maybe too perfect.

As children, my siblings and I used to imitate at play. We’d throw our hands on our hips and accuse one another, saying, “Oh my! You talk uppity!”

I decided that I didn’t want someone saying anything like that about me. I didn’t want my friends and family to think I put on airs. I continued using the language I grew up with, until I began to write.

Then, every time I looked, my thesaurus kicked out words and phrases that, when spoken, sounded like speech I had heard long ago. Uppity speech. Yet, it all sounded so good when I used those terms and phrases in my stories. I started getting published more. I graduated to using a Chicago Manual of Style. My former language nuances enhance my writing style, but now what I say is more grammatically correct.

What I realized was that the language errors in the ways of my common-folk upbringing kept me using simple language and colloquialisms in my writing. The proper language I had heard from others and shied away from was just that: Proper.

So in order for me to write stories to the best of my ability, I had to learn to write and speak uppity. And guess what. Doing so improved my stories beyond anything that I could beforehand have imagined. And all it really was, and had been all along, was correct grammar usage. So go ahead. Talk uppity.

Repetition Offends Your Reader

by Mary Deal

When descriptive words are used repetitively in writing, it makes the reader wonder why they have to be told something they’ve already learned earlier in the story. Repetition can kill your reader’s interest.

On Page 2 of my new novel, River Bones, the reader learns that Sara, the protagonist, is blonde when the real estate salesman describes her to someone else:

“Some middle-aged blonde woman—a real looker out of Puerto Rico—just bought that damnable eyesore down along the river.”

On Page 9 I say,

“The breeze whipped her hair across her face and wrapped it around her neck.”

I had originally written that sentence like this:

“The breeze whipped her long blonde hair across her face and wrapped it around her neck.”

Because I mentioned Sara’s hair color on Page 2, no need exists to mention the color again anywhere else in the book, with rare exceptions, of course.

Notice, too, her hair length was not mentioned on Page 2, but on Page 9 if her hair is long enough to whip across her face and around her neck, no need exists for the word “long” to describe it. Surely from reading that one corrected sentence, a reader knows Sara’s hair is not cropped off at the nape of her neck.

The word “long” was not needed due to the description of how the hair reacted in the wind.

To further prove the point, read the sentence from Page 2 with the correct sentence from Page 9. Then go back and read the sentence from Page 2 with the incorrect sentence from Page 9.

Analyze your sentences for superfluous words. Cut ruthlessly, or improve the action in your sentence to show what you mean. Your readers will love you for it.

Emotional Release

Through Character Conflicts

by Mary Deal

Writers must allow themselves to experience all the emotion they create as they write.

Sometimes the lyrics in certain songs get deeper into my psyche each time I hear them. The accompanying instrumentals can accentuate that too.

An example I like is Joy Enriquez’s vocal from the movie Anna and the King. Her squeaks and voice-breaks and near-crying tone at the right moment reach deep into my emotions and opens them up. When the song is over, I know I have heard words and music that have touched a deeper part of me and I feel immensely satisfied.

It is one thing to hear a pleasing melody, another to have the words of a song put you in touch with your emotions.

As an author of words, you should strive to go as deeply into your reader’s psyche, to dredge up emotions and perhaps rake them over fiction’s flame. If you can do this, ultimately you leave your reader with a sense of satisfaction at the story’s end.

In today’s world, it’s not enough to write a story for the sake of telling a plausible tale. As purveyors of emotional satisfaction through words, writers must appeal to the reader’s need for a sense of fulfillment. Like music, a good story is a good story. But music or a story that enables the reader to experience a gamut of emotions will be a better sell.

A simplified difference in story telling is that a good romance, perhaps, shows the reader the attraction between two people, their differences and how they overcome them. They end up together and, voila! The story ends upbeat in spite of it all.

In order to make that story linger in the memory of the reader—which will make them yearn for your next book—your characters must not only have differences but they might be irreconcilable. Certainly two people in love and having those kinds of problems ache inside. You as the writer must ache with them. You must write that story so that you feel all the pain. If you do not feel the pain, you have not presented a plausible enough reason to keep these two people apart. More importantly, you probably haven’t written convincingly enough for your reader if you cannot convince yourself.

If you can write so that you ache for your characters, then can come up with a solution that alleviates your own pain, your reader will feel that same duress and subsequent relief for your characters. You will have raked the reader’s emotions over fiction’s fire, presented a viable solution, and enticed your reader to remember your byline.

Notice that I said “viable solution.” Your ending doesn’t have to be the perfect solution, only an acceptable one. Perhaps, it is some situation that both people must learn to live with if they are to be together. They swallow their pride; they compromise something of great importance to themselves and they hurt because of it—all so that they might remain together. Or perhaps the story ends with them going separate ways and that might be the proper ending. But they still hurt inside. Didn’t your heart ache when you heard Rick (Humphrey Bogart) utter those famous words to Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) in Casablanca before he walked away: “Here’s looking at you, kid.”

When creating conflicts, check in with yourself and see how your heart aches for your characters. If you recognize that as something you feel as you conjure your plots, you will convey it to your reader who will absorb it and yearn for it as they gobble up your books.

LH: For twenty years I was involved in financial accounting, specialising in forecasting and budgeting.  A change in lifestyle in 2004 saw both my husband and I giving up our careers to spend a couple of years renovating and extending two old cottages and a hunting lodge.  We both loved being hands-on and taking on a large share of the work ourselves.  We both took part-time jobs and I worked for a local Estate Agent (Realtor) showing people around properties.  However, my hobby of designing interiors turned into a new career, when I was asked to furnish a newly built Show Home for a local property developer.  At the end of 2008 I became very worried about my mother’s health and gave up work to spend time with her.  Sadly she passed away in March 2009, which was when I decided to write full-time.

MA: What brought you to novel-length fiction?

LH: I began writing poetry at the age of eleven and then found myself watching ‘The Man From Uncle’, I would write my own little ‘episodes’.  As an adult I found juggling family life, a career and our hobby of buying homes that needed renovation work, meant that writing had to be put to one side. I continued to write poetry for fun and kept a small journal, where I recorded ideas ready for when I reached that time in my life, when I could sit down and write ‘a novel’.  As a birthday present to myself five years ago, I gave up watching TV each evening and wrote my first manuscript – just to see if I could write something from start to finish.  It made me realize that when the time came I was ready, but I had no idea when exactly that would be.  I began writing immediately after my mother’s death, as a way of giving my mind something positive to focus on, during those difficult early months.  It was at that point that I decided that fate had intervened and given me the opportunity I had been seeking for so long.  I realised that many of the ‘ideas’ in my journal would give rise to novel-length stories, so I began bringing them to life!

MA: I’m sorry about your mother, and while each of us finds inspiration in different ways, I think you turned your sadness into something positive, empowering. Tell us about your novel.

LH: My debut novel ‘Touched By The Light’ was released in February 2011, and this was the first novel I wrote shortly after my mother’s death.  At the time I felt a strong psychic link to spirits around me.  The opening sequence, where a young woman named Mya is ill in hospital and ‘follows the light’, was based on a near-death experience that had happened to my father many years before.  At the time I was at his side, holding his hand and he had described to me in detail what was happening to him, as he battled to stay alive following a serious cancer operation.  I believe it was his incredibly strong willpower that pulled him through that night, but what was amazing was that afterwards he no longer feared death.  He still had a lot of living to do, but he’d felt the ‘welcome’ waiting for him on the other side.  Whilst he was ‘out of his body’ he had also spoken to his mother, who was waiting on the other side of, what he described as, a bridge that disappeared into a bright light.  I went on to write another three manuscripts in 2009/2010 and found that I had my genre – I wanted to write about psychic or astrological connections, and true-life love and relationships.  So I would describe my genre as contemporary women’s fiction with a psychic or astrological theme.   However, I will shortly be releasing on Kindle an account of some of my psychic experiences entitled ‘Being A Sceptic Is Oh So Easy’.  Some of the things I have personally witnessed, and that have convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is life after death, may strike a chord with those who have lost loved ones, or had similar experiences.  For me it’s very much about ‘seeing is believing’ and it is now a part of my daily life, so it is only natural that it should feature quite prominently in my novels.

MA:  What made you choose to write ‘Touched By The Light’ through the eyes of five of the main characters?

LH: This is a story that has a lot of twists and turns, but also explores the way the ‘baggage’ we all carry around with us, can make our relationships more complicated than they need to be.  It’s often as much about what we leave unsaid, as what we decide to share.  Working on two different ‘planes’, and remembering that Mya is rather isolated when she moves on and has little control over when she is pulled into other people’s lives, was fascinating to write.  To then be able to expand upon her limited perception of what was happening, and see it from several other different viewpoints, helped me steer the reader through the plot in a meaningful way.  It’s a feel-good story about psychic connections between people on different levels of existence, and the two worlds become curiously entwined.  Mya suddenly finds herself involved in the lives of Laurel and Dan, a young couple she didn’t know in this life and who seem to be on the verge of breaking up.  She can only assume she is supposed to help them, but her efforts are often misguided, cause amusement or result in things getting broken.  It’s all about life and love, the things that hold us back; the mistakes we make and the things we don’t say, but should.  But when fate is involved anything can happen, although there are no guarantees that even soul mates can find their way through.  The journey they take is filled with all the emotions life has to offer and an insight into Mya’s new reality beyond ‘the light’.

MA: My Child Finder Trilogy features a psychic protagonist, but I must confess I cannot claim to have had any real-life experiences with the paranormal. Were any of the psychic experiences in your story based on real life incidents?

LH: Yes, my personal experiences do inform the way I describe psychic connections.  I’ve had so many experiences over the years and fortunately most of them have been good ones.  Some have been connected to properties, but many others are simply loved ones who have passed on and are around me, supporting me and giving me guidance.  On the rare occasion I have been in the presence of a ‘bad’ vibe, I’ve turned around and run away as fast as my legs would allow me to!  In ‘Being A Psychic Is Oh So Easy’ I explain why it took me so long to acknowledge something that had been proven to me time and time again.  I’m afraid the short answer is, that being a sceptic means you don’t have anything to explain or prove; however there came a point in my life where my husband and I both started to see ‘things’ at the same time.  That’s not something you can easily explain away, you run out of excuses and that was the truly scary part – acceptance!

MA: What other projects do you have planned for the future?

I have three manuscripts that are stand alone stories, one involving astrology and the other two psychic connections, but handled in very different ways.  I hope to have these published in 2011/2012 and further information can be found on my website http://linnbhalton.co.uk.

At some point I would like to write a sequel to ‘Touched By The Light’, as it would be fun to take the main characters into the next phase of their lives.  The wonderful thing about having help ‘from the other side’, is that I never know what is going to pop into my head next.  Every time I have a new psychic ‘experience’ I find myself weaving it into a storyline and the past year has been increasingly active.  My personal interest in the subject of life after death and the research I have carried out for some of the stories, seems to be opening me up to an even wider spectrum of experiences.  I have to say that I think the projects pick me, and not the other way around!

MA: Linn, thanks for stopping by today for a visit. I’d love for my readers to visit your website to learn more about you and your books.

Welcome, Norah! Tell us what you did before jumping into the literary world.

NW: I went to work as a legal secretary before I was legally old enough to witness documents. The work was fascinating and varied, but it didn’t pay very well. So after 9 years of that, I got licensed as an official court reporter, thinking I would launch a private business. But before I got serious about that, another opportunity came up in a completely different field. I switched streams to go to work for a provincial hospital association as executive assistant and secretary to the board of directors. Twenty years later, I’m the organization’s administrative officer.

MA: Congratulations on your successful career. How did you make the transition over to writing?

NW: I’ve always been fascinated by communication and by the challenge of persuading people with the written word. If I’d actually gone into communications or ad copy writing or some such career where that need was being fulfilled, I probably never would have written that first novel. But as it was, I had a burning need to write something and write it so convincingly that the reader would be transported. Since I’d been reading romance novels all my life, I naturally tried my hand at a straight contemporary romance. It was a disaster. Oh, I could string words together in very readable way, but the plots were boring, even to me. I needed something more. Then I discovered romantic suspense. The suspense plot finally gave me the “clothesline” on which to hang my story.

MA: Smiling. How did the romantic suspense realm progress for you?

NW: After years of writing and not selling, I’d gotten a little jaded about an industry that seemed to want only babies, brides and cowboys. Since I knew babies and brides would bore me to tears, I settled on cowboys. Because paranormal was starting to gather steam, I tossed in a psychic heroine. Thus I set about very cynically to write a book that New York might buy. Except when I started to research cowboys, I fell in love with them. That’s probably what rescued the book (LAUREN’S EYES)! In any case, New York did buy it. It won the New Voice in Romance contest in 2003 and was published by Dorchester Publishing in 2004. Since then, I’ve written a series of connected romantic suspense stories featuring cops. Again, my stories didn’t impress New York publishers overly much, so in the fall of 2010, I self-published them. They’re currently doing very nicely. I may not be topping anyone’s bestseller list yet, but three of them are consistently in the top 10 most highly rated romances on Smashwords, and all have been well reviewed. I’ve also written two paranormal romances (dark vampires) which my agent has. As well, I write with a writing partner, Heather Doherty, who is published in dark literary. Together, Heather and I have written half a dozen young adult (YA) books and two humorous cozy mysteries, all of which our agent is shopping around.

MA: Congrats on the Dorchester Publishing award! How do you develop your protagonists in the romantic suspense genre?

NW: Because I’d love for people to dive into my Serve and Protect series, I’ll focus on the first book in that series, GUARDING SUZANNAH. I should explain that because this is primarily a romance, it doesn’t have just one protagonist. It has a hero and a heroine who get equal play. When casting characters in a romance, it’s good to begin with two people who should, at least on the face of it, be each other’s worst nightmare. So I created a heroine who is the daughter of a former chief justice. She has an impeccable pedigree, but left lucrative private practice to be a public defender working with Legal Aid clients. She’s very good at what she does, and earns the undying enmity of the local police force (and the nickname She-Rex) for shredding officers on the witness stand. She has zero interest in forming any kind of social relationship with a cop. I then had to pair her with a cop from much more humble origins who delights in emphasizing their differences and making her feel like a snob. One whose physicality calls out to her in a way that doesn’t mesh with her self-concept as a self-possessed and reserved woman.

MA: Earlier you told me about Quigg. Explain who he is to my readers.

NW: Det. John Quigley (Quigg) is probably the least Alpha hero I’ve ever written. Not to say he’s not strong and completely worthy of the hero title. But his strength is a little quieter and he’s more reflective and self-aware than most heroes I’ve written. He’s strong enough to think for himself rather than blindly toeing that thin blue line. He’s also got a strong protective streak. With most of my characters, I find that at least one of their strengths is also a weakness for them, and I think that’s true here with the protective thing. He also has a bit of an issue with their divergent social statuses. As quietly confident as he is, he’s still got some niggling issues there.

MA: Do you feature any kind of nemeses to torture your heroes and heroines?

NW: I don’t use a recurring nemesis. Rather, each book has its own brand of bad guy. The villain in GUARDING SUZANNAH is your basic (though far from garden variety) stalker, but in the other novels, the bad guys are considerably more high powered. Which means the other novels carry much higher public stakes in addition to the personal stakes for the hero and heroine.

MA: With your background in legal services, have any of your personal experiences factored in to the stories?

NW: I do tend to use real-life stuff, but more to build a believable world than to fuel any key turning points. I do have some experience of the justice milieu from my earlier work life, which I draw on. I also consulted with a lawyer, a crown prosecutor and a cop on this one (thanks Peggy, Hilary and Matt!). However, there is one very real element in this book – the dog, Bandicoot. Bandy was the name of my dog at the time. He was very senior and I knew he wouldn’t be with me forever, so I immortalized him in the book. Every quirk and bizarre behavior displayed by the fictional Bandy was lifted directly from my dear, sorely-missed friend. He slept at my feet for thousands of hours while I wrote that and other books, and his portrait and his ashes sit here beside me still.

MA: That’s a nice story. Being a dog lover myself, I’m glad you managed to find a place in your stories for Bandy to live on. So what’s next?

NW: I had thought I’d finished with this Serve and Protect series, but I’ve had a lot of readers ask for more. With the success the books are enjoying, I’ve had to rethink my position. So I’m slowly working away on another. However, with all the other projects I have on the go, it likely won’t be released soon. My principle focus will be on the YA paranormal collaborations. Though my partner and I tend to be slow in our original genres, we write very fast together, and hope to break through into that YA market. But we’ve also written what we think is a very strong dystopian romance for the adult market. Diversification without dilution – that’s the goal!

MA: Since you are a series writer – certainly with the Serve and Protect line – will you feature many of the same characters in future stories?

NW: I will definitely keep employing the current characters in secondary roles with future books. Readers love to get glimpses of the hero & heroine from the previous book. And because many of them are cops in the same station house, it’s easy to keep them involved. That said, each story stands very well on its own. You don’t really need to have read #1 & #2 to understand #3. I must say, I would love to someday write a recurring protagonist over several books, but as long as I’m writing romantic suspense with the emphasis on the romance, I’ll just have to keep trading them in for new characters and new chemistry.

MA: We follow the same philosophy about series and standalones. My Child Finder Trilogy flows from one book to the next, yet each can be read out of order as a standalone. I like that. Anything else you’d like to add?

NW: Only a huge thank you for having me! I’m very aware my stuff is somewhat … fluffier … than the usual fare in this very masculine lair! I’m kind of betwixt and between. Some romance readers might find my work a little too gritty and graphic, while your thriller-reading audience might find it a trifle soft. But I do think there’s crossover potential for both audiences. I’ve had quite a few men message me on Twitter or Facebook to tell me how much they enjoyed the stories and how well they do hold up against traditionally published authors. In fact, if any of your reader base take the plunge and read one or more of my stories, I would love to hear what they think on this point.

Again, thanks so much for having me!

MA: It was my pleasure. Thanks for guesting with me, Norah. I encourage my readers to visit Norah’s blog for more information about her stories: http://www.norahwilsonwrites.com/

by

Mary Deal

No one likes rejection, but rejection is just a word – a word on which too many writers place too much emphasis.

When you understand the process of submissions and rejection, that word will hurt less if at all. You’ll see it as just another step in your progress.

The process includes you wearing your fingertips down to nubs as you get your prose written. Before you send your submission, what you need to know is that many factors become involved in acceptance or rejection. Here are only a few:

1) Did you follow the Guidelines perfectly?

Every publisher has different guidelines because they all have varying publishing formats and processes, from the type of story they accept to the format in which they require you to submit. Do you know how to switch your story from a .doc (in Word) to .rtf (rich text format)?

So you have followed all the guidelines? Next…

2) Did you read a copy of the magazine or some of the publisher’s novels or books to understand the type of stories they accept?

Are you submitting blindly, thinking your plot is so good they will accept it? No matter how good your story, someone else has written a better one.

3) Another factor may be the mood of the person on the receiving end.

You have no control over that, but if your story doesn’t ring bells with a literary agent or editor, no matter how good, you’ll get a rejection. The agent or editor could have recently been slapped with a divorce suit, or suffers from PMS that day. You have no control and human frailties do play a part in the process.

4) Have you submitted your manuscript all over the place, especially when guidelines call for “no simultaneous submissions,” and irritated a bunch of professionals you had hoped to impress?

Agents and editors all know one another. They talk. They tell each other of their negative experiences. Once someone associates your name with a really negative experience – C’est la vie!

5) Did you meet the deadline?

Did you wait till the last possible moment to submit? Most editors will choose favorites from the early entries because they can’t depend on what’s coming in with the slug of last minute arrivals. That’s not to say they won’t change their minds when a late arrival is so good they feel compelled to share it.

People find themselves in a rush when they wait till the last minute to finish their manuscripts. When they do, it’s thrown together haphazardly. An agent or editor can’t be blamed for picking favorites early. I believe all stories get read, but it would be difficult to displace a favorite. Submit early. Show you are ready to do business.

These are just some of the reasons for rejection, both in your control and out. If you know the process and still feel depressed over a rejection, your issues are not with the word “rejection” but, perhaps, you feel you’re being slighted. That just isn’t so.

I keep records of all my submissions, acceptances, and rejections. You should do that from the beginning. I have so many rejections that, knowing the process, rejections bounce off. My response is, “Hmmm… didn’t fit in that agent. I’ll try this new one.” That’s all the thought I give to it. That’s if I followed all the guidelines correctly.

Agents may send rejections, but editors won’t tell you if you followed the guidelines. You’ll just get a standard rejection. Sometimes it’s a form letter on their office memo; other times they may hand write a note on your cover letter and return it. In the case of magazines, you may never hear from them again, maybe not even get a rejection, just… nothing. But times are changing.

One of my biggest lessons of rejection was that I forgot to transfer my manuscript into .rtf format. I sent it in .doc. I knew I’d not hear from that editor again. I submitted the story elsewhere and got it accepted. To this day, I have never heard from the first editor, nor will I send a follow-up email since the story was accepted elsewhere. The first magazine was my first and greatly favored choice. I paid for my mistake.

Please visit Mary Deal’s website for more wonderful articles like this one: Write Any Genre.

That’s a very colorful life and background you’ve had! You mentioned dabbling in the arts and having a love of reading, so it sounds like a natural progression to writing.

SN: Way back in my early teens, together with a few of my school chums, I began writing short stories. There’s no doubt that Tom Sawyer, The Three Musketeers and the various pirate novels were the principal contributors to our writing affliction. Also, the principal cause of all my later accompanying woes. But, aside from those early literary misadventures, and a lot of reading since, my first serious involvement with English Literature happened in my college English 102 and the subsequent course, Advanced Creative Writing. It was a true miracle that I managed to get through those two classes with A’s, and even to this very day, I am convinced that my professor was one crafty yet friendly soul. I guess, my feeble pretenses to understand Shakespeare warned him I wasn’t the material for a future scribbler. Thus my English Literature marks, A or F, were quite inconsequential. And his conclusion was natural, I was studying how to become an engineer, not how to write another War and Peace.

From then on, my writing was, one might say, ‘placed on hold.’ A lot of occasional reads, but not much else until a decade ago. It was then that that sordid writing affliction got sort of reawakened within me, and the desire to become a writer was reborn too. And so, finally, after all those years, I chained myself to my laptop, and began writing again. I worked very hard while braving various virus attacks and rejection e-mails from a multitude of publishers and agents.

MA: Given your penchant for writing short stories as a teen, how did you come about writing novels?

SN: That is an interesting question. Early on, in my teens, I dreamed of writing a top short story. Much later, after reading a number of novels, I decided that short stories were not for me. Mostly because avid readers loved novels. I felt it was in my best interest to stay away from short stories and proceed with novels. There I could fit in my interest in thrillers–suspense and crime, the genre that was my true love and I knew I could do it well.

MA: You and I share a few writing things in common. My Child Finder Trilogy is a thriller series with paranormal elements which some of your books have also featured.

SN: I write fiction based on partly true events and characters. My novels deal with infamous criminals, espionage, and extrasensory perception tied together with unusual and extraordinary action. Basically, I write about anything that will make the reader interested in the story. I don’t specialize in any genre; I try to write about life in general. My stories cover local and international events. Also the events I have lived through and been a part of. Mixing fiction with fact makes readers believe in my stories.

For example, Crossroads is a thriller/suspense based on extrasensory and the action takes place in the US, Russia and France. The principal character is a U.S. agent assigned to lead a group of men with very special gifts like clairvoyance, remote viewing–the ESP. The inspiration came from a sentence found in a major newspaper in the early 90s. The story is far more than espionage, James Bond like flick. It deals with several countries and characters with their ethnic peculiarities.

The inspiration for The Raven Affair came from the news too. In this case I had already heard quite a lot about one particularly infamous criminal involved in genocide who was finally being prosecuted in California. I thought that I could write a story that would be far more interesting than a description of his hideous exploits alone. I decided to add a number of fictitious characters and a number of fictitious events. The title of this book was based on its central character, the hit man known as ‘Raven’ who, as a child, witnessed the horrors of genocide and decided to revenge his family. But the stories included in this book are far more interesting than the criminals and, of course, I’ve used my imagination to make them believable.

Both books were reviewed by the top country reviewers like the Midwest Book Review, The US Review of books, Apex, etc. I just received a note from the “Eric Hoffer Award” representative advising me that The Raven Affair is “Da Vinci Eye Finalist” and an “Eric Hoffer Award” finalist.” I feel that it is a great achievement for my novels.

Fear! is my next book that I hope to have it released soon. It is a sort of a historical biography. And, I am presently working on my third thriller, Tunnel.

MA: Congratulations on the book award accomplishments! Those are two excellent and prestigious selections. Tell us how you approach the development of your characters.

SN: I develop my characters through events. I let them speak, act, and from their actions and dialogs one can get the feel for the character’s strengths or weaknesses. For example, in The Raven Affair, the hero (the hit man Raven) has the criminal in the gun sights and yet he does not shoot him. He lets him live so that the people’s courts can judge him for his hideous crimes.

MA: A hit man protagonist! Tell us more about him.

SN: Raven is a very determined man. He is ready to sacrifice his life yet, occasionally, he is cold and detached, disinterested in other people feelings.

MA: I take it with these standalone novels that you do not migrate any of the characters over to other novels, or do you?

SN: I don’t have a recurring character in my novels as yet. Each of my novels is a completely different story with different characters, with one exception. I am developing the use of a character from Crossroads. This is still in a developmental stage and I am not yet set on other characters and their interaction. I can assure you that he will be used in the most interesting way.

MA: Given your travels in life, have any of your experiences outside the United States inspired your writing?

SN: Yes, I lived in several countries, England and France for example. I dealt with various people there and although people are pretty similar everywhere, there are ethnic peculiarities that one needs to experience in order to portray a character properly in a story.

MA: Where can people learn more about your stories and purchase your books?

SN: My books are available in print and e-book formats on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Fictionwise.com, etc. They can be accessed directly from my web site: http://snedelton.com.

MA: Thanks, Steve!

So, Brian, tell us why you made the transition from insurance to writing.

BB: Since the late nineties, I had been itching to do something else with my life, rather than continue on in the insurance field, having worked for some of the biggest brokerage firms in the world. It was no longer gratifying. I’ve always considered myself to be creative by nature, drawing (representation under ‘author’ on my website) being a part of that creativity when I was younger but not so much younger. On my website under the link ‘inspiration’ you will find the true reason behind me deciding that I wanted to write. The story is true even if it sounds a little corny.

MA: Why novels? Why not Insurance for Dummies (chuckling)?

BB: Writing novels was something I thought I could do and be good at it. After writing my first novel, if I thought it wasn’t good enough, the book, along with me would never have seen the light of day. I liked the challenge that writing presented to me personally—to be able to create something out of nothing other than what we as writers can think of and then somehow put it all together. Wow!

MA: What is Dressed for a Kill all about?

BB: My story revolves around a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, who aside from working on the biggest story of his life, is also confronted with problems at home. The following is what can be found on the back cover:

To Chicago Trib reporter Miles Fischer, it was just another rape and murder trial, until the two convicted felons are found dead in the muddy parking lot of a rundown bar just days after their surprising acquittal. His curiosity turns to suspicion after searching the archives where he discovers two more cases similar to the one in Tweeksbury. Is it a coincidence? Miles doesn’t think so. In fact, he believes he knows who the killer is after a chance encounter. Miles draws the ire of the FBI and becomes tight-lipped when confronted to disclose what he knows after publishing an article connecting all three. He wants the story and the glory that goes with it, and believes he is the only one who can identify the killer. He sets his sights on Seattle and creates a game of cat-and-mouse with the FBI and an ex-cop turned private investigator, who is after the same thing but for different reasons. What he and the private investigator don’t realize is just how deadly this game is about to become.

MA: That sounds exciting! So did you mold any characters from people you knew in real life, perhaps from your years in the insurance biz?

BB: I actually used some of the characteristics from me personally and transferred them over to the main character, Miles Fischer. I’ve had one person who reviewed the book call him, “a character you love to hate”, which took me aback somewhat, believing Miles is a good guy. I’ve had others who read the book say they loved the character, Miles Fischer, but then again, the book is really not about me. It’s about the fictional character, Miles Fischer. I would say the main character is both of these, ‘love him’ or ‘hate him’.

MA: Hmmm, so a protagonist who may not or may not be so likeable…tell us more about his personality.

BB: His strengths are his beliefs in the truth and finding out what those truths are, no matter what the cost, even though at times he skirts the truth in order to get what he wants. I would also have to say he’s not one to give up, again, no matter what the cost may be to both his family and his own personal safety. He’s opinionated (but aren’t we all?) and it’s those opinions (beliefs) that keep him going while around him, his marriage falls apart. He sees things as black and white, no grey areas, so I would say this trait can be construed as both positive and/or negative.

His weaknesses are he can be drawn to a pretty face (some called him a ‘womanizer’) that can lead him into making the wrong decisions to his own detriment. He can also be sarcastic to a fault when the situation suits him. He hates rules when they tie his hands. He thinks highly of himself, but he’s not as smart as he thinks he is, alas, the final chapters in the book which expose his failings with regard to his pursuit of the killer.

MA: Do you also have an antagonist who is as likeable/unlikeable as Miles?

BB: On the question of an antagonist, I would have to say it could be and probably is more than one. Bruno Carboni, the PI, is certainly the main one, since both he and Fischer are after the same thing. Agent Donlon is also an antagonist, since Fischer has no regard for the FBI as he pursues the killer with Donlon on his back. His wife, Erin, could also be considered in the same mode since she is against him in his pursuit of the story, wanting him to give it to someone else so that he can be at home with her while she delivers their first child. The problems going on in the marriage between Miles and Erin were taken from real-life. Mine to be exact.

MA: You told me you are working on two new projects. Tell us about them.

BB: Presently I’m working on two books; both are completely different from my first novel. One is written in the first person, my first attempt at what I think is harder to write. Therein lies the challenge.

MA: Thanks, Brian, for swinging by and chatting about your novel, Dressed for a Kill. To my readers, please stop by Brian’s website for more information: http://www.brianbianco.ca