Storytellersunplugged

Photo by Hryckowian I’m in the midst of teaching an online workshop called Jump Start Your Novel, which focuses on the methods I use to organize a project so that I can write the most powerful novel possible in a reasonable time frame. In the workshop we’ve been talking a bit about characters, so I thought I’d share some thoughts on that subject today. Characters are the heart of any story. A reader wants to be transported out of their daily existence to another ... Read More

Like many writers I know, I’m a pack rat when it comes to information. Anything I see or read or hear that I think might be useful for a story at some point or another gets clipped or bookmarked or jotted down for safekeeping. The trouble with this is that until recently I didn’t have a useful way of storing this information for future use. My magazine or newspaper clippings went into one big file folder, making it near ... Read More

Face it. The first five pages (sometimes the first five sentences) are going to make or break your book. They will be the first pages that a prospective agent or editor will read. Later, once the book gets picked up, they will be the first pages that a prospective book buyer will read. So how do you make those five pages, and the rest of the beginning of the book, so good that the editor, agent, or prospective reader wants ... Read More

I was involved in a message board discussion the other day about how I set up a series bible. For those who aren’t familiar with the term, a series bible is a summary of all the information you need to write multiple books (or television shows or films or what-have-you) in the same setting/story world. Since I do the same thing for my stand alone novels as I do for series work, I thought I’d share that process with you ... Read More

Earlier this month I received my editorial letter on the third book in the Templar Chronicles series, DIE SCHATTEN (The Shadows). For those of you unfamiliar with the term, an editorial letter is just that – a letter from your editor. In it, the editor will point out and explain any changes and revisions they would like to see made to a manuscript before it goes into final production. The intent is clear – to use the editor’s ... Read More

This past weekend I said goodbye to four friends that I’ve known for some time. We’ve gone through a lot together; the deaths of loved ones, work-related problems, outside influences that tried to hurt us, that didn’t have our best interests at heart. Sometimes I loved them like brothers. At other times, I wanted to kill them and I spent many an evening developing the most deliciously cruel and bizarre ways to do so. The thing is, we’d ... Read More

Several years ago, when I first got into this business, someone told me that it is better to be published well than to simply be published. I thought I knew what that meant. But I’ve come to understand that sometimes, you think you are being published well, when in reality, you are not. Case in point. In 2005, Pocket Books published my second mass market novel, HERETIC. It was the first book in a series known as the Templar Chronicles, a ... Read More

A few weeks ago I took time out of my busy schedule to disappear for a weekend to a small town just outside of Baltimore, Maryland. No, I wasn’t having a mid-life crisis of any kind (and I certainly wouldn’t pick Maryland as the place to have one if I was!) nor was I trying to escape from a wave of raging fans. I was one of sixteen participants at this year’s Borderlands Press Writers Bootcamp. Bootcamp is a three day ... Read More

I’m sitting here at my desk in the study, a well-stoked fire roaring in the fireplace beside me. Outside, the wind is blowing steadily and the sun, while bright, doesn’t seem all that warm. It is 9:15 in the morning and the thermometer on the wall near the sliding glass doors to the deck says its 28 degrees outside.   Did I mention I live in Phoenix, Arizona?   As our brother Mort might say, “What the Fzck?”   But I digress.   I’m ... Read More

  "In the late 21st century, when something alien is discovered beyond the edge of the solar system, the spaceship Theseus sets out to make contact. Led by an enigmatic AI and a genetically engineered vampire, the crew includes a biologist who's more machine than human, a linguist with surgically induced multiple personality disorder, a professional soldier who's a pacifist, and Siri Keeton, a man with only half a brain."     My Christmas gift to all of you.   I discovered author Peter Watts a few ... Read More