Category: ALTERNATIVE HISTORY

I am Getting Some Useful input

Well, I have done another rewrite of the first chapter of Ordo Lupus – even though it is already available.
Basically one of the last crits I received on critters.org (they come in for about a week after you submit) was by somebody who I feel is a very experienced writer. Rather like what they are advising me to do more of with my writing, they actually showed me what do do with parts of my text, rather than just tell me.

The problem was with thoughts or more specificaly POV thoughts (another acronym I learned – Point of View). In many places, because my book is in first-person he expresses thoughts which are left unsaid. Until now I didn’t know what the convention for this was, so I just put them in single parentheses, thus ‘thought’. Continue reading “I am Getting Some Useful input” →

Update on Things I’m Working on

Not sure what I am going to write but a friend mailed me today asking how things are going and it occured to me I haven’t posted for a while.

Ok – Ordo Lupus and the Temple Gate
It’s being professionally previewed: ie a company reads it and assesses the cover, narrative cohesion, story, pricing, characterisation etc against its market. It’s relatively cheap at about 60 dollars and I think it is better value for market than these so-called ‘promotional’ packages where they just give you a banner on some obscure site and then add you to a db which is used by US book sellers to locate books. I mean why would they even find my book, let alone actually decide to stock it without reading a decent review?

Continue reading “Update on Things I’m Working on” →

The Take Home Message

I haven’t posted for a while because I have just been so busy. My day job is taking up more and more of my time and energy – out of office hours too.

Well Ordo Lupus is now published at (defunct Lulu link removed) and any reviews comments would be gratefully received.

I had this idea for promoting it: to hire a wolf and put a sandwich board on it with a poster of my book and walk it around the bookshop districts of London ie Charing Cross Road and the Embankment. I have actually made enquiries of a theatrical animal handling company but I cannot see it happening. It has to be illegal cos even with a young tame wolf which is muzzled, it’s got to be capable of some damage with its claws if it gets riled. Continue reading “The Take Home Message” →

Finding Titles for your Books

I have changed my mind on the title of the novel which is now almost ready for publication. I finally settled on:

Ordo Lupus and the Temple Gate.

I really like this title – not too much like a Harry Potter title but still has that ring to it. I like the rhythm of it actually. Also like the fact that I managed to get two descriptive words – gate and temple in there. The temple bit will be fairly obvious to most readers but the gate bit is only alluded to in the text.

The manuscript is now uploaded to lulu.com.

I have started work on building the cover for the book. I am having some problems getting permission for some of the images. One of the owners of an image seems to be uncontactable.

As far as the new sci-fi story is going, I have been making good progress and the plot is developing. What is surprising though is that an element of plot has crept in which I never planned and I have no idea where it will go. Where do these things come from?

The Humour in My Writing 2

Humour in Writing
Update to my post of 3 April (Humour in Writing 1): I found that very few people understood my joke and it’s true I find visual stuff much funnier than wordplay which seems to be what most people find funny. One person laughed her head off at my joke though so I console myself with this. It seems that it is risky putting jokes in a story and I may avoid it but at the moment I still want to try it because it develops a subplot of the story. I have been thinking though, and I realise now why stand-up comedians do that little bit just before a joke – to build up tension and set the scene. So what the guy on the box is going to do is say this:

“Funny things – aliens. I have heard they’re violent most of the time but when drunk are really a laugh and love dancing. Opposite to humans really. Continue reading “The Humour in My Writing 2” →

Reaching Your Target Audience

Well, I have decided to call the book ‘Ordo Lupus and The Winged Serpent’. It’s not a name I thought up (thanks – you know who you are and there will definitely be acknowledgement), but it’s better than the titles I thought up and others like it.

Target Audience
I initially aimed this book at Baby Boomers – well actually I basically aimed it at fantasy/suspense thrillers and then pleased myself, but it has ended up more pure fantasy than I intended. I don’t really mind that. It’s often been said that there is an element of sci-fi in all my stories and I suppose fantasy is pretty close to that, so maybe I am homing in on what I really like writing (and perhaps I am getting better at it). I now just need to actually make contact with my audience! I had a lot of friends into this kind of writing many years ago at college, but I seem to have lost contact with them. I do not have a single close friend who is into the genre now, so I am contacting interest groups on lulu.com (where my work is published). I will see if they are interested in reviewing my work, and I will review some of theirs in return. Continue reading “Reaching Your Target Audience” →

The Humour in my Writing 1

OK. I have arrived at a point in my new sci-fi story when I need to write some genuine comedy – a joke actually. I often mix humour into stories but I have never tried proper comedy before or a joke. So I am going to try it out here and see what people think. The humour (that might, I hope, make the joke funny) has this context in the story. At this time (whenever it is) aliens are known to exist but nobody has seen one yet. There is a stand up comedian who is busking on a street corner and the main character sees him and hears the joke and laughs. Later on he sees the same guy on a talent show on the equivalent of tv and perhaps later again, each time developing his jokes further.

When he is seen on the street corner he is dressed in suit, standing on a soap box (futuristic equivalent) and wearing a satirical rubber mask in the likeness of the presedent of US and Canada. He is interspersing his jokes with humorous comments about passers-by. Here is the joke: Continue reading “The Humour in my Writing 1” →

I Have Received useful Feedback

OK all the readers who are going to complete my draft (of the werewolf story) have completed it and I have all the feedback. It makes for very interesting reading. The curious thing – which I didn’t expect but probably should have, is that they all completely disagree.

While one person thinks that one chapter or section is boring, for another it is their favourite part. This makes it quite difficult to do any editing at all although there were some areas that all felt could be improved. A secondary problem arose from that though:

For instance one passage that several felt was really extraneous I deleted, and then did a kind of flash-back just for the vital details of that section – like a summary. But then people said it sounded like I was rushing on to the next bit. Even worse, one reader said that for the next section there then wasn’t enough background so that I even contemplated putting the original section back in. Continue reading “I Have Received useful Feedback” →

Offering Readers Choice of Pace

In my novel Insanity, some readers have preferred certain parts and others have felt they are too long or too detailed so I am thinking of offering an ‘extended’ version of the book, like a ‘directors cut’ which will have the longer air battle and the whole chapter in Bulgaria for those who want more background. it just seems a shame to cut out all of this which some have liked. in fact some wanted more air battles.

What do you think of this idea? It might offer people the choice of what sort of pace they want.
Incidentally what do you think of the title? Do you think it should be shortened?

Sci-fi Features Top Trump Factor

Welcome to the first one of a series of Sci-fi Top Trumps. In actual fact they will be Iron Top Trumps because that is the provisional name of my new sci-fi novel. Its set mainly on Io, moon of Jupiter and Io has an iron core. There’s something about the Iron Cross as well but don’t get the wrong idea. Also there is a deeper meaning but that will only become apparent much later if you read the story.

So what Top Trumps? For those of you that haven’t come across them before they are a pack of cards with items on which have varying numbers of points attached to them depending on the quality/attributes of the item. For instance for cars you might have a card for a Mini and an E-Type Jaguar. Clearly the Jag is heavier, faster and more powerful than the mini so it would beat it on every attribute in a game of cards where you call out your strongest attribute. So for my Iron Top Trumps the attributes are:

Coolnest
Cost
Usefulness
Futurosity (how far in the future you might have to go to get one)
Weakness (lowest score wins)

Scores are out of 10 Continue reading “Sci-fi Features Top Trump Factor” →