A Gift for You

My holiday gift to you really is a Christmas present this year. For five days beginning tomorrow, November 27th, 2012, you may download a free copy of the Kindle version of Fulfillment, my novel of the first Christmas.

Fulfillment will change the way you think about the first Christmas. One of my Amazon reviewers called it “… the most unique version of the Christian Nativity story ever written.” So far, it’s received one five-star and two four-star reviews. (For my Christmas present, I’m hoping Santa… and you… enjoy Fulfillment enough to give it a five-star review on Amazon.)

I wrote Fulfillment by first asking: What was Satan up to while God was going about the business of sending his son to save the world?

In my story, Satan sets out to stop the birth of Christ. Since Jesus is too powerful to take on directly, Satan decides to kill the mother before Jesus is born. Of course you know how the story ends. Jesus was born in Bethlehem. The suspense, horror and awe in my novel occur on the journey. If the idea of Satan hungering for your soul doesn’t keep you awake at night, read Fulfillment. It will.

Free Fulfillment - for 5 days only beginning tomorrow
Click here to download a free copy of my Christmas novel, Fulfillment, for your Kindle starting tomorrow, November 27th and running through Saturday, December 1st. You may purchase the paperback version on the same Amazon page. The paperback "buy" link is below the book cover image. And you may click on the book cover to read a section of the novel for free before you download your copy. That's always a good idea to see if you like the novel before downloading it.

And if you can't wait that long, it's only a couple of bucks on my Amazon Author Page. See all of my Amazon books by clicking here.

Need a Kindle? Download the free version of the Kindle reader for your computer, tablet or smart phone from Amazon by clicking here.

Here’s another novel idea…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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.

Reading for More than 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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Announcing Hags

This Present Darkness meets The Blair Witch Project in Paul R. Lloyd's 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…
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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…
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Reading Suspense/Thriller Fiction

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.

For more on this topic, please visit my author blog by clicking here.

Here’s another novel idea…
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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.

Learn more by clicking here. And be sure to share with your friends by clicking on the social media buttons below.

Putting it to paper.

      There are many ways a person can write a story.  There is no proper way or way that it has to be done.  Writing just more or less happens.
      I've found that the style I use best is the form in which you map it out first, find out where I'm going with the story before writing too much.  I started out with the 'write by the seat of your pants' style.  I couldn't figure out how I wanted to start my book so I started somewhere in the middle and just kept writing.
It wasn't until I took History of Theater in college that I figured out that I could start my book in the middle of the story.  The professor shared that when you watch a play you are witnessing a snippet of the character's whole story.  What he meant was that you weren't watching the character's entire life ie: birth, childhood, adolescence, and so forth.  So what you are seeing is the portion of the character's life pertinent to story of the play.
      Once I learned that, I decided that I would use what I've written as the beginning of my book.  From there I realized that I wasn't sure where I wanted the story to go.  Some writers are okay with that and it's fine.  My writer's blocks tend to deal with me not writing because I don't know what is going to happen in my story.
So my method is the story boarding style.  I have several white boards that I map the whole plot line of my book out on.  These plot points are not set in stone and I have changed them as I've gotten feedback and found out some plot points are weak or irrelevant to the story or characters.  You just can't set it in stone.  That will limit you too much, especially if your story takes a turn you hadn't anticipated earlier (which happens quite often).
      When I actual go to write, I pick a plot point that I feel like I can tease out into a scene.  It might be a large scene that is several pages in length or it could end up being only half a page just so I get the plot element into the story.  Once I'm done writing it down and typing it up, I go back to my white board and update the point with a little more elaboration so that when I go back to look at the board later I can remember easier how I expanded it.
      I am very visual with my planning.  I've drawn maps of the areas my characters have gone so that I can describe them better in the book.  When creating a new world it helps to remember where all your landmarks are in relation to each other.  Or while writing the second book of my series, I realized that I had a hard time remembering where certain characters were in their own story lines, relative to each other.  So I took one of my white boards and drew out a timeline for each character.  One time line above the other so that when I plotted the points of the timeline for each character, the points then showed, in more readily available format, where each character was.
     I'm not saying this is the best way to write a story, and I'm sure it doesn't work for everyone.  This is the way I set it up though and it keeps me on track.  That being said, I'm always curious about other writer's methods and ways I can try differently to keep the creativity flowing.

The Ending of Mass Effect

(If you haven't finished the game I apologize there are some SPOILERS in this discussion)

There has been this huge discussion about the recently released game Mass Effect 3.  It was a huge hit with game critics and an absolute turn down for players.  The biggest reason being the ending of the game.

I have played it through once and seen the possible endings of the game afterward from people recording their choices on YouTube.  While there are a lot of holes in the endings, particularly pertaining to the scene with the Normandy flying between Mass Relays, there is something that a lot of the people who played the Mass Effect line have left out.  The fact that not every story has a completely happy ending.

I felt fine with my choice and the end of the game.  With a series so immense as the Mass Effect series is, to accommodate for all the choices a player could have chosen while playing would have been astronomical.  But the true fact of the matter is, it is the writers of the story that have planned out what ending it will ultimately be.  The fact that the writers left an Easter egg at the end of one of the choices just means that that ending was the one they had planned the whole time.    Not to mention the possibility for future games and spin offs.  

Yes, I know that the game was made to shape the galaxy into how the player wanted to, like deciding which species gets to live and which doesn't or who you want to befriend or not.  But its similar to the saying, "you can't bring money with you".  Meaning that you can't take money with you through the grave.  So whatever you do in the game will ultimately not matter at the end because the threat you have to face at the end will either destroy you or leave you limping and bleeding afterwards.  Yes, limping and bleeding is better than being dead but what I'm saying is even if you've won you still had the crap beat out of you.

As many of the players who really looked into the game, aside from playing it through to romance some alien chick or shoot up space meanies, should know from the Star Trek franchise that there is sometimes a no win situation.  So when Shepard dies at the end and strands the massive fleet he brought with him to Earth that is a no win situation.  Yeah, the threat to the galaxy is gone but sacrifices had to be made to do so.  That's what Admiral Hackett had been saying for the entire game.

You may say you hate the ending of the series but what you're not seeing is that the writers did exactly what writers are supposed to do.  Draw out your emotions and feelings so that they can be felt by you and, if they can pull it off, those around you as well.  What the players are kicking and screaming about is that they didn't get a 'Hollywood Ending'.  Not every story has a 'Hollywood Ending' and that's great. Not having happy endings is something that people remember.

All of this is not to say that writers shouldn't take into consideration what their audience feels.  If they didn't, they would get lazy.  As we've all seen with absurd amount of remakes and reboots of older movies coming out of Hollywood.  If writers didn't take their audiences' views into consideration the literary world would dissolve into too few actually creative books.  Much like what is coming out of Hollywood.  This point may not be pointed at the writers as much as producers not willing to put out movies that are original either way there has to be new ideas to promote growth.  But back to my main point.  What I'm saying is that even though a story is the work of a writer, the writer still writes the story so that other people will read it.  There has to be a trust for the writers to write something that will move the audience, whether to make them happy or sad or even angry, and an understanding that if something is written with an upsetting ending that it will still be well written and not just a cop out.

The Multiple Perspective Approach

There are various ways to write a book, and they all have their advantages and disadvantages.

For instance, a first-person perspective book is great for character development but the problem, as I see it, is that that is the only way a writer can show things happening in the story.  It seems to me that characters end up hearing things or being present to events almost haphazardly.  I know there are writers who do this well and can pull it off amazingly, but that's the case with all writing.  Some authors can pull off writing styles amazingly.

The omniscient third person where the narrator can tell the reader everything they need to know about the character the first time the character is introduced.  This makes it easier to describe things that happen that are pertinent to the story without forcing, in some manner, the main character to be there.  The drawback to this style is that it tends to give too much away to the reader.  Some readers like this, of course, because some people like to know what's going to happen or they enjoy the feeling of what I like to refer to as 'Game Show Syndrome'.  What I mean by that is, when someone watches a game show and they know the answer but the person on the screen doesn't, they sit there yelling the answer at the person even though they can't hear them.  This same thing happens with books and movies.  The classic of course being, "Don't open that door!"

There are many other ways to write than the two I listed above but those are two common ones.

The perspective I use and personally love is the multiple perspectives.  This approach still is kind of a meshing to some of the others.  It allows the writer to still be able to draw the reader in and influence their opinion of the character while allowing the freedom to show things happening in other parts of the story that may still be important to the overall story.  If done well, the story will come together and mesh well while still providing some good intrigue.  If done poorly, like when I first started writing my story, all the characters just end up seeming like the same person or different character attributes of the same person.   To me it seems that using more than one main character allows the writer to toy with the reader's emotions and get them to second guess who the 'bad guy' is in the different character relationships.

About my first book.

   I realize in my last post I spoke of my book, He Came Around the Corner, and that was the first mention of it anywhere.
   So who cares?
   Well the hope for all writers is that people will care when they write a book and I, like most writers, write to influence those around me.  The purpose of writing is not always to make someone think about something profound and philosophical, although that is sometimes the case, particularly with some classic novels.  Sometimes writers will write just to make the reader feel enjoyment from what they read.  This is why I write.
   The funny thing about writing fiction is even though books are put into archetypes, they will often fit other archetypes as well.  For instance, a mystery novel could have a strong romance element in it.  My book is a Young Adult (YA) Fantasy but it still has other elements in it.  The next secondary element, after being Fantasy, in it is the romance.  The romance of the book actually causes one of the profound questions to appear in the story: What exactly are we capable of?

   My book is about two teenagers, Drake and Athena, at the end of their senior year of high school.  On the night of a school dance, what they know as the world they live in changes.  They find themselves alone in their town, everyone they knew and who lived in the town vanish.  The power is gone and only things on batteries and generators will work.  On top of all that, the two of them have to fight for their lives because where ever they go in town, there are orcs who want to kill them.  The only thing keeping them alive are Drake's new magical ability to summon a sword and their knowledge of the town they grew up in.

Movies have them, why can't books?

I've been writing my book for several years now and when I write I listen to music. There are several scenes in my series so far that have been greatly influenced by particular songs. Songs like Jenny Was a Friend of Mine by The Killers and Adele's Set Fire to the Rain. Adele's song actually inspired a scene for the second book in the series. I also listen to soundtracks to movies as well and a group that, much to my laughter, itunes categorized as soundtrack music, Two Steps from Hell.

Which leads me to my topic. There aren't a lot of soundtracks to books out there. I'm not talking about soundtracks to movies that were adapted from books and I have heard that some books do it but it's still a small amount. So I plan on making a list of the songs I listened to while writing my book, He Came Around the Corner. I also figured I could put on the list when the song came into play in the book or even when to listen to the song when someone is reading it.

I feel that if the music made that much of an impact while writing it then it would enhance the scene while reading it. When I had my friends read excerpts to give me feedback, I suggested they listen to the soundtrack to the Lord of Rings movies while they did. They said that some of the scenes were really more pronounced when the music was playing.

I'm sure there's some science behind this, I'm pretty sure it has something to do with stimulating different parts of the brain at the same time. I've also heard a lot of discussions on how music affects people which of course is fascinating. What I'm getting at though is, if the opportunity is there, why not enjoy the music?

Welcome Aboard

Our Dwarven Phaser may be missing or it may simply be that weird looking flip phone in the back of my desk drawer (I have no idea how it got in there which is what makes me suspicious that it may just be the missing alien light shooter), but we have discovered blogging. We're the Write Time Writer's Group from Geneva, Illinois. Our meet up is about 35 miles west of downtown Chicago.

If all goes according to plan, you'll be reading posts from our members. They'll introduce themselves as they come aboard. I'm Paul R. Lloyd, leader of our little tribe of scribes. I write suspense novels. My reading habits include other people's suspense stories as well as a healthy dose of horror, sci-fi and mystery.

The Missing Dwarven Phaser is about writing and editing. Here you'll find our best thoughts on the craft along with bits of braggadocio, writer's humor and the sharing of tidbits of our work, depending on how each of us chooses to participate.