HOPE’S END: ANCIENT ENEMY 3 is now available on Kindle/Amazon.

I’m so excited to finally release the next book in my ANCIENT ENEMY series. But the good news is that this most likely won’t be the last one – I’m already working on the outline for the fourth (and probably final) book in the series. There will be some big surprises in the final book, but I don’t want to say too much about it just now. And hopefully it won’t take me as long to get the next one written.

I hope everyone will pick up a Kindle copy. It’s only .99 cents for a short time, but it’s free if you’re subscribed to Kindle Unlimited. And remember you can always download a Kindle app on your phone or tablet for free. Just go the Amazon page, then the Kindle Store and you can download the app there. You can find my book here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07G1MS6RK

I’m busy right now putting the finishing touches on my newest series, a post-apocalyptic horror/thriller. I’m hoping to have those three books available in the next month or so.

Please feel free to spread the word about my new book!

CREATING MAPS OR SKETCHES FOR THE WORLD OF YOUR STORY

In my last post I talked about creating a world for your story, and this post kind of goes along with that one. When you’re building a world, especially a totally made-up world, you may want to write a history of that world, and along with that history, you may want to create maps and sketches of that world and the characters that dwell there.

I’m not sure if a lot of writers do this or not, but maps and sketches are tools I’ve used often in my writing. And maps and sketches don’t just have to be for some alien planet or fantasy world, they can be helpful for any story. If a large portion of my story takes place in a house, I’ll draw a diagram of that house. In the diagram, I’ll draw where the rooms are, the major pieces of furniture, the doors and windows, which direction north is, etc. For my book THE EXORCIST’S APPRENTICE, I drew a map of the house where much of the second half of the story takes place. For my novel THE DARWIN EFFECT, I drew the schematics of the spaceship they were on. I also drew a map of the entire town of Edrington for THE SUMMONING.

Drawing diagrams, maps, and sketches helps keep things straight in my head as I write, and keeps things logical. You don’t want a character entering the master bedroom off of the living room early in the story and then have that character enter the same bedroom from a hallway later in the story. Many readers will pick up on this flaw even if you don’t.

As far as fantasy is concerned, it almost seems mandatory to include a map of the land where the story takes place. I wrote a book with a friend of mine called THE CHANGING STONE (which we still haven’t published yet), and we created a detailed map of the continent along with other detailed maps. Those maps helped me keep details in the story straight while writing it.

When it comes to sketches, they can be useful if you’re writing a horror story and want to sketch out the creature or monster you’re trying to describe. I’ve used sketches many times in my writing. Even though I created a map/diagram for the saloon in HOPE’S END: ANCIENT ENEMY 3, I still wanted to draw a sketch of the place so I knew exactly where the tables were and what was on the walls, and how the place felt.

I think maps, sketches, and diagrams can be useful tools to help you with your writing. What do you think? I would love to hear your comments.

Next month we’ll talk about naming characters and places in your story.

Until next time . . .

Well, it’s a little past the halfway point of the year, and I thought I’d post a progress report for 2018. At the beginning of the year I resolved to publish more than last year (I only published 2 books in 2017), and I set a publishing schedule for 2018. I was doing okay at first, publishing FOLLOWED in January and then THE VAMPIRE GAME in April.

But then life got in the way. My wife and I bought a house and spent weeks painting and remodeling, and then our son got married.

But now it’s back to work for me.

The next book I plan to have on Amazon/Kindle is the third installment in my ANCIENT ENEMY series called HOPE’S END.

HOPE’S END is a prequel of sorts and tells the story of the ghost town featured at the end of DARKWIND. But there’s also a twist at the end of this one that ties a lot of things together.

I’ve also completed the first three books in my new post-apocalyptic series that I’ve titled THE RIPPER APOCALPYSE. What’s a ripper? You’ll have to read the first book to find out. The first three books are the introduction to the series from various characters’ viewpoints, and it all begins as society collapses. I can’t say much more than that right now, but I’m already halfway through the first drafts of books 4 and 5. I’m really excited about this series, and I’m already imagining where it can go. I hope to have the first three books of this series available sometime in August.

I’m also working on the second book in THE EXORCIST’S APPRENTICE series, and I hope to have that one available in the fall.

And there’s a stand-alone thriller I’d love to complete before the end of the year called SLEEP DISORDERS. A man’s wife disappears while they’re eating at a restaurant. The police are sure she walked out on him, but he believes she was taken. As he digs deeper into his wife’s past and a secret life he knew nothing about, the mystery grows more and more odd and frightening.

I’ll continue posting my writing tips for each month (one more this month since I missed June), and I’ll continue notifying you of any sales or promotions I’m part of. Thank you for sticking with me and this blog, and I truly hope you’ll keep tuning in.

Until next time . . .

Note: This was supposed to be posted last month, but my wife and I moved to a new house and had to do some painting and remodeling before we could move in. And then right after that our son got married. So . . . apologies for not getting this out last month, but here is June’s Writing Tips.

BUILDING A WORLD FOR YOUR STORY

When a reader begins your story, you want them to enter a new world. That world could be the inside of a spaceship, or nineteenth century London, or a rural town in Maine, or the dawn of civilization. But you want your reader to see that world, smell the scents, hear the sounds, feel the air temperature. These details may take some research (which we discussed in an earlier post) unless it’s a world you already know well.

How do you describe this world? I think it’s important not to overdo the description in most cases. In Stephen King’s On Writing, he has a great section on description and he describes a bar scene in that section. Description is a balance of details yet not bogging the reader down with too much information.

Building a world, especially an entirely new world like a fictitious town, another planet, or another civilization (like in different genres of science fiction and fantasy) may take some extra work in the beginning. You may want to write a history of the world and places you are creating before you even begin your first draft in those cases. But as with the tips we discussed on research in the earlier post, you may not want to include every detail you created in your history or bible, just enough details to tell the story.

In my next post (which I will post in a few weeks) we will talk about creating maps or sketches for the world you are creating in your story.

Hope this helps someone out there.

Until next time . . .