Thoughts on my novel: "Beware the Aegean Lion"

I recently wrote up a description of my forthcoming novel "A Matter of Discretion (found here)." This is a discussion of its follow-up novel, "Beware the Aegean Lion," of which I have just completed the first draft. There are minor spoilers below for "A Matter of Discretion" but nothing that would ruin the book.

Following the events of "A Matter of Discretion," Giles Northbridge finds himself at a crossroads, questioning how he will proceed with his life and whether he can remain in his nameless profession as a fixer and cleaner for the wealthy and powerful knowing that his work has hurt others in the past. He also finds himself more alone than ever, so when one of his few remaining companions asks for his aid in helping settle a blackmail scheme perpetrated against a high ranking military officer, he cannot turn away. Worse still, he fears it may somehow be connected to newspaper stories about a massacre in the desert half-a-world away. It is made even more enigmatic when he returns home and finds a cryptic message left on his desk by persons unknown bearing only four words: "Beware the Aegean Lion."

The novel continues to explore the time period as the first book did and delves further into Northbridge as a character and how his guilt drives him. Notably, it asks the question of how (and if) someone can find redemption after committing a crime they cannot atone for. It also examines several aspects of society that would become significant drivers of social and political action in the modern day, despite appearing only as subtle whispers during this time. 

Without giving too much away, Northbridge finds himself caught juggling a variety of needs both personal and professional as he is caught up in conspiracies, a gang war, and international intrigue.

I have just begun the editing phase and hope to have it ready for the beta reader phase soon. Should anyone be interested in beta reading "Beware the Aegean Lion," please email me at bernardtheauthor@gmail.com.

Thoughts on my novel "A Matter of Discretion"

I recently completed the first draft of my second book following my character "Giles Northbridge," so I thought it would be a good time to go back and discuss the first book, "A Matter of Discretion," since I never did so before. A discussion on the forthcoming second book, "Beware the Aegean Lion" will be out shortly.

The series follows Giles Northbridge and begins in Britain in 1910. Northbridge is a fixer for the wealthy and elite, cleaning up problems for those in power whether that means digging up dirt on a rival, swindling someone out of their riches, or ensuring that embarrassing incidents are quietly swept under the rug. When "A Matter of Discretion" begins, he is accompanied by his two most frequent collaborators: the frequently out-of-work actor Mors Glasford and the enigmatic thief and pickpocket Miss Lille. After a certain job leads to some unforeseen consequences, Northbridge finds himself questioning his morally grey role and his place in the world. However, he is sidetracked when a new job comes along in which he is asked to locate the rebellious Henrietta Fowler, the idealistic daughter of a powerful politician. Soon after, an attempt is made on Northbridge's life and he finds himself swept up in a mystery revolving around a violent revolutionary, a murky cabal of military officers, and his own malevolent half-brother.

I came up with the character of Northbridge as sort of a response to the posh, refined images of nobility at this time seen in stories like Downton Abbey. Northbridge is the silent agent of the rich and powerful, ensuring what they need to maintain their wealth and privilege gets done despite living in a time when their hands are tied by decorum and cultural procedure. He is a character that can blend in anywhere but belongs nowhere and thus offers a wide range of opportunities for stories as he slips between the halls of power and the darkest corners of post-Victorian London.

What also drew me to the series was the time and setting. The period between the death of Queen Victoria, thus marking the end of the Victorian Era, and the outbreak of World War I is one of change. The time sees the old world of carriages, oil lamps, and telegrams giving way to automobiles, electricity, and telephones. The aristocracy and nobility still hold sway but they are challenged by revolutionaries, radicals, and those seeking social change. Women are calling for the right to vote, the working classes are pushing for fair pay and better conditions, and there are the stirrings of movements for racial equality. It is a liminal period that lands between our society's past and its modern form. The storm of change hasn't arrived yet, but the clouds are billowing, there is thunder in the distance and, whether they admit it or not, the first rain drops have started falling.

I did a fair amount of research into the time period for the series, with two books by Barbara Tuchman being of particular inspiration: "The Proud Tower" and "The Guns of August." They are classics of historical study and Tuchman describes the strange contradictions of the time in great detail and depth. She also lays out how the social change of the time, and the Great War that closes this era, was ultimately inevitable. 

"A Matter of Discretion" also delves into Northbridge's character, who he is behind the masks he wears, and why he does what he does. Melancholic, solitary, and reflective, but insightful, witty and resourceful, he carries a bitter outlook on life that is undercut by a deep craving for idealism. I (unintentionally at first) wrote him as an INFJ on the MBTI range, which is what I am. He is a great character to write and between the three stories I've completed so far, his is the one I could most see becoming an ongoing series with its variety of story opportunities and topics to explore. 

More information on "A Matter of Discretion" can be found here.

Thoughts on my novel "Cheshire"

Taking a break from my series on writing advice, I wanted to highlight one of my works-in-progress: “Cheshire.”

The story follows Evelyn Liddell Percy, a former member of British Intelligence who is living in retirement after being forced out of SIS. She thought her time as an intelligence agent was over until she is told of the death of her estranged husband and fellow agent, Charles. Believing Charles faked his death, she starts investigating where he’s gone and why he would want the world to think him dead. It leads her down a rabbit hole of old secrets, uncertain loyalties, and mysteries she thought had been solved long ago.

The story is set in 1961 but alternates its chapters between previous periods of Evelyn’s life which showcase her joining SIS and working her way up through its ranks. Beginning with her joining the agency as a mere typist at the outset of World War I, she shows a knack for intelligence work and makes a mark on this emerging organization. Taking place amid the height of Cold War paranoia, I wanted to look at the realities of being a spy and what that lifestyle was like.

“The Secret History of MI-6” by Keith Jeffrey was a fantastic reference while I was doing my research. His book lays out the first forty years of MI-6, also known as SIS. It laid out the hard facts of how these first modern spies operated and how their trade evolved through the end of the Second World War. As a writer, I am fascinated by the ins and outs of history; how things actually were, how they happened, and how they work. The espionage and spy genre is one that has often grown so far from reality, that the general public is surprised when reality doesn’t even bear a cursory resemblance to the fictions they have come to accept. It was these fictions I wanted to sidestep while still crafting a gripping and thrilling narrative.

I love James Bond flicks as much as anyone, but they are—and always have been to at least some extent—a fantasy. James Bond leads the life that every guy wishes they could experience: wearing the best suits, using the coolest gadgets, driving the hottest cars, sleeping with the most beautiful women, all while going on globetrotting adventures in which he is the hero. It’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s thrilling—but it’s not reality. The original novels by Ian Fleming were a bit more down to Earth, being inspired by his own experiences interacting with members of British Intelligence during World War II, but even then, his stories were colorful and more focused on style and the lifestyle of the dashing secret agent than the gritty reality of it.

There have been spies who have posed as dashing playboys, but that is certainly not the average experience. There have been ingenious and quirky gadgets used in tradecraft like poisoned umbrellas and tracking devices hidden inside the sole of someone’s shoe, but they are remembered because of their novelty and the actual equipment used by spies if far more down to Earth. There have been agents who have played vital roles in saving the world and stopping nefarious plots, but those actions are far more likely to take place in an office or a windowless basement filled with maps and documents than in a shootout with a gang of faceless henchmen. However, when the average person thinks about spies and espionage, it is James Bond that it usually the first thing that comes to someone’s mind. The fantasy has eclipsed reality.

The work of authors like John Le Carre are far closer to real life. Like Fleming, he also had real experience in British Intelligence, but he strayed far closer to the truth. His works such as “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” and “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold” highlight that espionage is about intelligence gathering and often boils down to a game of who can think three steps ahead of their enemy instead of only two. It was his work that was the biggest influence on “Cheshire,” and how it is the ability to notice the small things or discern clues from the scantest of information that defines intelligence work. There is no shortage of Le Carre’s George Smiley in Evelyn’s literary DNA.

My other biggest takeaway from Le Carre is how important the human element of espionage is. The biggest role of espionage, especially during the Cold War, was human intelligence—the art of embedding or flipping agents among the enemy’s ranks. It is here where the most valuable information is gleaned and how plans can be laid in place that may not pay off for years. The human element also is evident in the characters. James Bond is usually depicted as an unflappable pillar of courage and confidence. Le Carre’s characters depict how living in a world without trust where death comes most often in the form of someone who they know and are familiar with can weigh on a person—or how that lifestyle can attract those with less-than-balanced personalities.

I wrote “Cheshire” with this attitude in mind. I wanted to explore who Evelyn is, and how living as an intelligence agent affects her and those around her. What kind of person joins an organization like this, how does it shape them, what are the consequences of living a life among lies, duplicity, and secrets? An aspect of the book that I focused on was the theme of stepping up and accepting responsibility. For most of her life, Evelyn reported or deferred to someone of a higher rank or who had seniority. Now, in her 60s, having been shunted to the side and forced to work on her own, she must discern if she is capable of being that person who is in the lead, making decisions, and taking action.

Evelyn is a character who grew up as a romantic and idealist, who found a home among other idealists willing to fight for what they believe in. However, that dark world of espionage slowly chips away at that idealism, and she sees, bit by bit, the grim reality of it all. A lot of my characters wrestle with the problem of how to remain a good and moral person in a world that is often neither good nor moral. The world of spies and secret agents is the perfect setting for such a question. Can Evelyn remain a good person despite often being surrounded by bad people? How is that done? What is the fallout on one’s life from living that way? As someone who considers themselves as somewhat of an idealist, I believe idealism does not mean sticking one’s head in the sand and ignoring the dark or complicated aspects or reality, but rather it means accepting the dark and complicated aspects or reality but never failing to look for ways to make it better. I think this is an idea that is very much something Evelyn would espouse.

Evelyn is smart, wry, and—despite her methodical nature—somewhat impulsive. She was a joy to write and a rich character to flesh out and explore. I hope she, and her world, are as enjoyable to readers.

How to write a book part five: Character and themes

This is the fifth entry in my series on navigating the writing process. To see my first post in the series, click here.

Fleshing out the lead character of a story can be one of the most important—and most difficult—parts of writing a book. This is even more true if a story has more than one protagonist or main character.

As I said in previous posts, the story is intrinsically tied to the arc of your primary characters. It is through their eyes the events are observed and processed and it is them who change or are changed throughout the course of the story. Therefore, it is usually best to determine at least two things about your protagonist before the story begins: who they are—their identity, background, appearance, and so forth—and their arc—or who they are when they start the story, who they are when they end the story, and at least a rough idea of how and why that change occurs throughout the narrative.

At the end of my second post, found here, I wrote about character creation sheets and tools to help flesh out the background and identity of a character. Each tool helps the author ask questions to help the character feel more like a real person than a two-dimensional narrative device. I won’t repeat myself here, but the key is thinking about how people see the character, how the character sees themselves, and how their history shapes who they are and what they do.

I would argue you need to do this first in order to figure out the second part, which is finding how they change. The arc of a character works best when it is tied to what the book is trying to say. If the author wants to communicate that people cannot bury their heads in the sand and cannot go through life ignoring unpleasant truths, then that should be reflected in what happens to the main character. In this example, the protagonist should start as naïve or unwilling to look up at the unpleasant truths of their world, but by the end they “wake up” and acknowledge that accepting and confronting these difficult aspects of their reality is the only responsible way to live. This also means that they should be confronted throughout the story by characters, events, or ideas that challenge their initial view and ultimately cause them to accept their new perspective.

The experience and journey of the protagonist should ultimately be the experience and journey of the reader.

How do you determine what that arc is going to be? Well, ask yourself what you want to say as an author. Why are you writing this book? What truths do you want readers to either learn or accept after reading your work. Theme and character development are closely tied together. Like real life, a book can be complicated and grey. A theme doesn’t have to be clear-cut or definitive. Maybe the theme can be vague, saying something along the lines of “love is complicated.” When the book is finished, readers may take away different things or think about different aspects of love, but they should all realize that love is not always a cut-and-dried happily ever after emotion. Regardless of whether the themes of the book are clear or murky, it is the protagonist who must learn this lesson—and thus they must start out in a different, possibly opposite place than this ending point. If the message is “love is complicated,” than the main character may start out wanting a storybook romance that ends with they and their love interest riding off into the sunset. That way, when they find out by the end of the story that life is never so simple or easy, the contrast between their starting perspective and their ending perspective is clear.

This brings us to one of the most important and often cited rules for writers: show don’t tell. “Showing versus telling” is something you may have already heard of; it is so ubiquitous when learning about storytelling. In essence, you—the author—should never tell the audience something about your character or theme. It gets boring and preachy fast, and it is not engaging to the reader. You show the reader that piece of information through action or dialogue. What does that mean? Think about “The Godfather.” The character of Sonny is a volatile, expressive man with a short fuse. Yet, no one in the story says “That’s Sonny. He has a bad temper.” Instead, we see Sonny spit on an FBI agent’s badge and throw a reporter’s camera to the ground, slipping from happy and celebrating to spoiling for a fight within seconds. We aren’t told Sonny has a temper; we see if for ourselves.

The same goes for themes or a message the author wants to convey. If you want the reader to believe that friendship is important, don’t have a character say that friendship is important—and definitely don’t include in any sort of narration or narrative text. Instead, show how friendship can make the difference in a dire situation by having characters act selflessly and sacrifice for those they care about. Alternatively, you can show how duplicity and selfishness ultimately leads to a self-destructive outcome by a character’s selfish actions or betrayal ultimately leads to their doom.

It can also ensure you aren’t contradicting yourself. In the “Song of Ice and Fire” series by George R.R. Martin, the series upon which the show “Game of Thrones” was based, we see characters repeatedly seek vengeance against those who wronged them. However, we then see that this vengeance is ultimately hollow and does nothing to make the world—or the avenging character—better. In the show, we are told this message by characters, but then we see characters taking revenge and it is treated as a victory or something that the characters take great satisfaction in. Your words and actions can’t contradict themselves if you are relying on actions to convey your message.

How to write a book part four: Story structure

This is the fourth entry in my series on navigating the writing process. To see my first post in the series, click here.

Structuring a story can be tricky. What do you need in your story and where do you put them. The comparison I made in my earlier posts about using your elevator pitch and summary as a foundation is one I want you to keep in mind. Writing a book is like constructing a building in some ways. You need to ensure everything you put in it has the proper support beneath it that supports its weight. You don’t want to add anything extraneous that sticks off the structure and serves no purpose. Everything in your building materials has to match—or at least blend together.

Always think about what has to go into a story to support the weight of the other elements. For instance, if you have two characters who fall in love, you can’t get to the end of the story and have them suddenly realize they are infatuated with each other. As the story progresses, you have to show how they meet, how they get to know each other, how they discover within themselves that they are interested in the other person and so forth. Moreover, it can be boring if they meet, get to know each other, then fall in love. A writer should add a bit of drama and throw some obstacles in their way so that when the pair finally do get together, it is satisfying and cathartic to the reader. Maybe they dislike each other when they first meet and they have to slowly overcome it as the story progresses. Perhaps they are separated and have to fight to be together. Maybe the obstacle is internal and one has to overcome their emotional baggage from a failed past relationship in order to profess their feelings. Putting things into a story is not just about adding something in, it is about adding in everything that has to come before and after so it both makes sense and has the necessary emotional resonance with readers.

One of the most common terms heard when discussing story structure is it being separated into “acts.” This goes back to when stories were commonly performed on stage and they would literally be separated out into distinct pieces where there would be act breaks. Modern books, film, and television generally do not have literal acts, but they usually have them metaphorically to divide the story into phases.

The three-act story is the most commonly cited structure. The three acts generally are divided into:

• The first act contains the introduction where we are presented with the setting, most or all of the main characters are introduced and we learn who they are, exposition is provided so the reader knows the necessary backstory to understand what is going on, and the inciting incident occurs that interrupts the status quo and presents a conflict that needs to be resolved or a problem that needs to be solved. The first act generally ends with the protagonist—and any companions of theirs—deciding to address the issue introduced by the inciting incident. This can sometimes be accompanied by a small victory (encouraging them to act by showing them they are capable) or by a loss (encouraging them to act by motivating them to prevent further tragedy).

• The second act is the rising action. If the first act ends with the character or characters attempting to address a conflict or problem, the second act shows how they attempt to do so. This act includes victories and defeats, but nothing is resolved. The goal of act two is raising the stakes. The characters discover that achieving their goal is even more important than they first realized. The tension increases, the situation gets more dire, and this act usually culminates with the largest setback of the story. The story should be at its most dire at the end of the second act so readers go into the third act desperately wanting resolution and catharsis. The second act also is where we see the character start to change. If they need to master a form of martial arts to defeat the villain, they train. If they need to find self-confidence, they begin to express it and come out of their shell. If the protagonist is pining after the girl of his dreams, he gets to know her, and they start to get along. The character arc should be advanced in act two, but like the plot, it should not be concluded. In fact, the second act often ends with a defeat. The hero uses their martial arts skills against the villain but isn’t strong enough yet and only gets hurt. The protagonist is put in a do-or-die moment where their confidence is tested and they chicken out. The protagonist is about to declare his love for the girl of his dreams but finds out she has started dating his best friend.

• The third act is the resolution. The plot comes to an end and the character arcs are concluded. The protagonist should be at their darkest point going into the third act, so the third act intrinsically asks the question: “how do they get out of it?” The third act should be the struggle to resolve this dark point in the story and then shift into the climax, which is the final showdown where the conflict or problem from act one gets a resolution. This can be a happy ending where the protagonist succeeds and there is celebration, a tragedy where they fail due to some personal flaw or forces beyond their control, or a bittersweet ending where they accomplish their initial goal but it comes at a great cost. However it ends, the problem presented in the first act reaches a cathartic conclusion.

A commonly cited work is Joseph Campbell’s book on storytelling “The Hero with a Thousand Faces.” In his book, Campbell laid out what he dubbed “The Hero’s Journey,” in which he described the common facets of storytelling among cultures across the world. Campbell posited the theory that mythological narratives frequently share a fundamental structure. In his book, he called the common structure seen in these myths “the monomyth.” He described it as:

“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered, and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”

The monomyth structure bears many similarities to the three-act structure but goes into further detail.

1. The Ordinary World: This is the world the protagonist comes from. Like the start of act one, show readers the basics of the setting, the main character or characters and demonstrate the status quo. Establishing the needs, wants, flaws, and characteristics of characters are also information to deliver to readers whenever possible.

2. The Call to Action: This is essentially the inciting incident. Something makes the lead character or characters want something or need something that wasn’t pressing or relevant before. It’s also worth noting that this can be an increase of need. If the story starts with the protagonist being in dire financial straits, they always needed more money. However, if the inciting incident is them losing their house, then that need becomes a pressing need. They still need more money, but now there is a pressing and fire need for it.

3. Refusal of the Call: In many stories, the hero refuses to heed the call to action. They decide it’s not their problem, there’s someone better capable of handling it, they are too afraid or too comfortable with their current life and so forth. This leaves the protagonist with room to grow since it demonstrates that they do not begin their journey as the person they have to be in order to finish it. This also raises the stakes since the hero is allowing the antagonist to win before the story even gets going. Adding this in obviously then requires them to reverse course and then accept the call to adventure. They might get a better understanding of why they need to act, witness with their own eyes the negative consequences of their lack of action, or have the reason holding them back stripped away from them.

4. Meeting the Mentor: In order to grow, the protagonist must start the story as unprepared to solve the problem established by the inciting incident and not ready to confront the antagonist. The mentor starts the protagonist along the path to growing. They give them physical items to complete the journey, knowledge necessary to proceed, and perhaps necessary exposition that better explains why the conflict must be resolved. The “mentor” in Campbell’s terms might not even be an actual person. It can be a book the protagonist finds or a magic sword they inherit and so forth. The key point is that the protagonist receives some sort of knowledge or power they didn’t have access to before. This is what starts their character growth that culminates in the story’s climax. Meeting the mentor also can be what reverses the protagonist’s reluctance in the Refusal of the Call stage.

5. Crossing the Threshold: This is a point of no return for the main character. The protagonist embarks on their journey and begins to meet the strange and unusual people, places, and circumstances that lay beyond their home. Until this point, the hero has had one foot in their ordinary world. Afterward, there’s no choice but to go forward into unknown territory, otherwise called the special world or magical world. There often is a challenge that must be overcome at this point orchestrated by the antagonist that both demonstrates the power and capability of the antagonist and reinforces the need for the protagonist to act. This is analogous to the end of act one in the three-act structure.

6. Tests, Allies, and Enemies: The protagonist is challenged and their newfound skills and knowledge is put to the test. The protagonist is still not fully developed however, and the reader should see that they still have a long way to go. Show them grow by overcoming obstacles but build tension by showing that they still are not ready. This also is where allies and companions often enter the story. The reader gets to know these additional characters, how they are similar to the protagonist, but also how they differ. Building minor conflicts or disagreements between characters who are ostensibly on the same side is a good way to build tension and introduce themes into a story. Additionally, use this portion of the story to show off ho dangerous this journey is. The second act is all about ramping up the tension—don’t skimp on the tension.

7. Approaching the Innermost Cave: This is a continuation of Tests, Allies, and Enemies. The protagonist and their companions continue forward, but they realize they will soon be met by the most daunting challenge yet. The protagonist is growing but it is clear they are still not prepared for what has to be done to conclude the conflict. Keep things proportional. If Tests, Allies, and Enemies is all about ramping up the tension and increasing the difficulty, this is where the protagonist sees they have yet to face their greatest obstacle.

8. The Ordeal: This is the danger or problem the protagonist was not prepared for from Approaching the Innermost Cave. This largest challenge shows that the protagonist still has not grown into the person they need to be to achieve their goals. It generally puts the protagonist through the ringer and strains them to their utmost—and it still isn’t enough. In many stories, a side character—often the mentor figure—dies, thus removing a helping hand from aiding the protagonist, leaving them far more alone than they were before, ramping up the tension and stakes even more, and leaving the main character at a low point as they leave the second act. A core notion in Campbell’s theory at this point in the story is that the protagonist is forever changed by what happens here. While they are not the person they need to be at the end of the story, they might realize who and what they truly have to become. … Or they might not realize it and this growth is more internal. The key is that the protagonist gets broken down so they can rebuild themselves into someone stronger by the time they need to confront the antagonistic forces at the climax.

9. Seizing the Sword: Also known as “The Reward.” The protagonist achieves something that is key to their journey and is usually what they entered the innermost cave during The Ordeal for. Despite the cost, the protagonist has achieved something that will be key when they reach the climax. This serves as the culmination of The Ordeal and brings about an end to act two in the three-act structure.

10. The Road Back: The protagonist has learned and grown throughout their journey, has set out to accomplish the goal set in the first act, and perhaps gained a vital tool or insight to achieve it. However, they also have suffered defeats and seen the difficulty of achieving their goal. They must rise above adversity, coalesce what they have learned and gained along their journey, and stride toward the story’s conclusion. In Campbell’s monomyth, before the hero can return to their normal world, they must realize they must confront the antagonist and overcome one more obstacle in the story’s climax.

11. The Resurrection: The protagonist overcomes their antagonist or antagonists in a final showdown, whether physical or metaphorical. Here they are put into one last confrontation in which the fate of the story’s conflict and goal hang in the balance. It’s not only important that the antagonist is overcome, it’s also important that the protagonist defeats them using what they gained over the course of the story. If they gained courage, they use their courage. If they increased in skill, they use their skill. If they learned not to give into hate, they remain strong in their convictions and show mercy and grace. The protagonist has concluded their character arc, and this arc determines the outcome of the climax. Whether the protagonist wins or loses, the conflict is resolved and there needs to be catharsis for the reader where they feel satisfied that the conflict has been concluded.

12. Return with the Elixir: Also know as “The Magic Flight” or just “The Return,” the final step in Campbell’s structure in the denouement or falling action of the story. The hero returns from their strange and magical journey and returns to the ordinary world, but successful in their goal and armed with both the physical and metaphorical treasure they accumulated along their journey. Although the primary conflicts are tied up and resolved in the climax, here any loose ends are tied up. You may use this as an opportunity to show how the protagonist has changed as a result of their trials and tribulations or how the world has changed. In an ongoing series, this also is where the groundwork is laid for the next entry in the series, as one or more of those loose ends are not yet tied up or while one problem has been solved another now looms on the horizon.

The original “Star Wars” film from 1977 famously follows this structure very well, something it’s creator, George Lucas, has openly admitted. We are introduced to Luke Skywalker in his life as a bored farmer on a backwater planet (The Ordinary World). Then he encounters two droids in the service of the rebellion against the evil Empire who carry secret plans to the Death Star, the Empire’s ultimate weapon (The Call to Adventure). He meets the old Jedi Master Obi Wan Kenobi who begins teaching Luke about the Force (Meeting the Mentor). Obi-Wan attempts to convince Luke to become a Jedi and combat the evils of the Empire, but Luke refuses not believing he can make a difference and that his place is with his aunt and uncle (Refusal of the Call). The Empire murders Luke’s aunt and uncle, thus convincing Luke he has nothing left to lose and showing him how real the danger of the Empire is, so he agrees with Obi-Wan to become and Jedi and they leave his home (Crossing the Threshold). This was act one.

In act two, Luke meets some new allies in the smugglers Han Solo and Chewbacca. Han shows he has no love for the Empire, but does not believe in the Force. The Empire pursues them off the planet, thus raising the tension. Meanwhile, the Empire uses the Death Star to destroy a planet, showing the stakes of the story and demonstrating why the Empire must be stopped. (Tests, Allies, and Enemies). The heroes unwittingly stumble across the Death Star and are pulled inside. They must figure out a plan to escape but also discover that Princess Leia, who sent the message with the droids is imprisoned there and they set out to rescue her (The Innermost Cave). Obi-Wan disables the tractor beam preventing their escape while the others rescue the princess (The reward). They fight their way through the Death Star narrowly avoiding death several times. However, before they can escape, Luke watches helplessly as Obi-Wan is killed by Darth Vader (The Ordeal). This marks the end of act two.

In act three, the heroes arrive at the secret rebel base. In possession of the Death Star plans, aided by Princess Leia, and armed with the knowledge of the Force imparted by Obi-Wan, Luke and the other rebels plan to attack the Death Star (The Road Back). The rebels assault the Death Star, however, all of the other rebels besides Luke are killed or driven away. With help from the friends he earned along his journey—in the form of a last minute rescue by Han and Chewbacca—Luke uses the lessons in the Force to destroy the Death Star (The Resurrection/climax). The heroes return to the rebel base and celebrate their victory, made better people as a result of their journey (The Return).

It is worth noting that even in an ongoing series, there should be some form of climax in the story since without it, the entry does not reach a conclusion. Without a conclusion, it is not one entry among several, it is part of a story without an ending. Keep in mind these rules that apply to a single story, apply to the overarching story of a multi-entry series. These rules can be applied very well to “Star Wars,” but they also can be applied to the original Star Wars Trilogy as a whole. There is a beginning, middle, and end to each of the three films, but there also is a beginning, middle, and end to the trilogy when looked at as a single work. This idea of smaller parts being miniaturized versions of the whole process is something key to the third type of story structure I want to discuss: the story circle.

Dan Harmon, the creator of television shows such as “Community” and “Rick and Morty” developed the story circle as a simplified version of the hero’s journey. Within each of the eight steps, the eight steps are generally included to some extent.

1. You: Also called the “Zone of Comfort,” this is the status quo as described in the monomyth and three-act structure. Harmon stresses that this is the “before” for a character, so it contrasts with the “after” nature of the character at the end of the story.

2. Need: The character desires something. There is something not satisfactory about their zone of comfort or something occurs to disrupt that zone of   comfort. The character proactively embarks on a physical or metaphorical journey to attain this need.

3. Go: They enter an unfamiliar situation. They leave the zone of comfort and are confronted with something new that challenges them and stands in the way of them achieving their need.

4. Adaptation: The protagonist and company confront this unfamiliar aspect of the story. They need to adapt to do so. The person they were at the start of the story is not capable of confronting these new circumstances, so they need to grow.

5. Find: Around the halfway mark of the story, the protagonist finds what they are looking for. They have the key, but the door is far away. This can be literal in that they need to return to their familiar settings with this key in order to solve the initial problem, or the door is within themselves, and they have a lot farther to go on a personal journey before the object of their desire can be of use to them. They still need to work in order to use what they have found to resolve the plot.

6. Suffer: There is a cost to pay for achieving what they want, so the main character will lose something. Perhaps this is a friend or mentor, perhaps it is their dignity, perhaps this is their understanding of and outlook on the world. Everything gained in a story must have a cost.

7. The Return: Your hero finds it within themselves to complete the journey and return home to their familiar situation. However, “within themselves” is the key. Your main character crosses back into the upper half of the circle, leaving the chaos of the second act behind. Yet this threshold doesn’t come without a trial of its own. This is where the climax occurs; the final test to use what they gained and learned on their journey to accomplish what they want.

8. Change: The character achieves a new status quo as a result of their journey. They have grown as a person. Perhaps they achieved their initial goal or perhaps they learned that something is more important. The crucial bit here is that they have become an evolved version of themselves at the start of the story. This is the “after” picture. As a circle, by the end of the story a new status quo is established thus setting the stage for a new episode, installment, or adventure.

Note that these structures all share many of the same elements. This is because stories generally have an innate formula, which is what Campbell argued in his book. A story is about a journey, whether physical or metaphorical. The protagonist has to change, or else why go on the journey? Change requires sacrifice and wanting something means confronting the people or things standing in the way of achieving that desire. These elements are usually crucial in any compelling story, from ancient epics and myths to fine literature to modern day summer blockbusters.

This may be a good time to point out that there is no single right or wrong way to construct a story. The point of creativity is to try and make something new. However, every writer should study the rules of writing. The rules are there for a reason, so if you are going to break them, you need to ensure that when you break them you are not creating a problem for yourself or the reader. For instance, the inciting incident should always happen no later than fifteen percent of the way into your story—if not sooner. You can break the rule and have it happen later, but then you need to address the issue of the story dragging too much and the audience potentially getting bored waiting for the proper conflict of the story to begin. Don’t be afraid to break rules but always understand the consequences of breaking them because those consequences don’t just vanish.

How to write a book part three: First lines and jumping in

This is the third entry in my series on navigating the writing process. To see my first post in the series, click here.

Alright, you—the aspiring author—have an elevator pitch and maybe an outline. You’ve done the necessary research, gotten a few ideas of where the story needs to go, and gotten into the heads of your main characters. Yet, you’re still looking at a blank page without a word of your actual manuscript written. Now what?

First things first, take a deep breath. Even the Mona Lisa was a blank piece of canvas at one point.

Some writers like to start at the beginning and work sequentially, never skipping ahead and completing a story in order, from beginning to end. The first step in this method is obviously coming up with a good opening line. An opening line should be engaging, interesting, and able to draw the reader in without being showy or melodramatic. The goal of the opening line is to get the reader to continue on and want to read what comes next. Think of some of the best opening lines from literary classics or your favorite books:

• “We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.” The opening to “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” by Hunter S. Thompson immediately draws the reader in like they are witnessing the first inklings of a bad trip (in every sense of the word “trip”). More importantly, this engages the reader because they want to know why they are at the edge of the desert, why they are taking drugs, and how what sounds like a precarious situation will play out.

• “You better not never tell nobody but God.” The opening to “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker immediately lets the reader know they are about to hear a secret, and everybody wants to know a secret. The reader almost leans in closer to their book, as though Walker is about to whisper something private and important just to them. It also helps establish the setting and the characters by framing the text in terms of a poor Black woman in the early twentieth century. The reader, in just the first line, starts to get a feeling for who is telling the story and when they are telling it.

• “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” The first sentence of George Orwell’s “1984” opens with something mundane sounding then subverts it with something strange and unknown. “It was a bright cold day in April” is something everyone knows; “… and the clocks were striking thirteen” then turns it on its head because, obviously, clocks don’t have thirteen digits. It is something curious that the reader instinctively wants an explanation for. It also subtly sets the tone that something is wrong and unnatural if something as fundamental as how we tell time is suddenly different or out of sorts.

A good bit of advice I’ve found is never mistaking something shocking for something engaging, especially in your opening line. Describing a murder from the perspective of the killer as a book’s opening might draw people in by immediately causing them to want to know what is going on and why this person is being murdered, but it could backfire by causing some readers to be too disturbed or shocked to want to continue.

I once was a beta reader for a book that opened with a graphic depiction of a sexual assault. I have pretty thick skin all things considered, but even I wanted to stop reading less than one paragraph in. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I beta read a book that opened with a couple sitting on a porch talking about whether they should get married or not. There was little—if any—indication of where and when it was set, nothing made me curious about who these people were, and it just dropped readers into the middle of a conversation they had no stake or particular interest in. I advised the author to cut that first chapter entirely—of two people just talking on a front porch—and jump right to the second chapter in which it was the morning of their extravagant, bustling southern wedding with family and friends rushing around trying to make their final preparations.

If you want to work in this sequential manner, go back to your elevator pitch and outline. Remember what you need to establish at the beginning of your story. This includes who your protagonist or protagonists are, what the status quo is, establishing the time and setting and so forth. While this can be done mechanically, including a bit of preface text stating something like “Edo, Japan, 1621,” it also can be done more organically. Describe the peasants working in the fields as their samurai lord rides by, include dialogue about how they only recently came into contact with European sailors, and so forth. If the story is from the perspective of the samurai lord, establish his air of nobility and perceived superiority as he looks out upon the workers he has dominion over and describe the crafted armor he wears and finely bred horse he rides. If it is from the perspective of the peasants, establish their hard life by describing their aching back, worn clothes, and their inability to look that passing lord in the eye.

Other writers, like me, will hop around and tackle the parts they have most clearly formed inside their heads first. This becomes a process like solving a jigsaw puzzle. Start with the obvious parts, the corner pieces, and move on from there. I discussed by “Sudoku method” in my previous post (found here).

Sometimes it can be good to just skip over parts that you don’t know yet. If you are writing and find yourself on a roll, but then come to a point in the story where you don’t know how to proceed, skip over it, and come back to it later. If you know your character has to do something clever to escape a trap but you can’t think of anything clever yet, just write “character does something clever to escape” in parenthesis, highlight it or add a note so you don’t forget about it, then continue on with whatever comes next, so you don’t lose your momentum.

The other main challenge for authors, especially new authors—besides figuring out how to start—is actually sitting down and writing. If this is something you are having difficulty with, don’t feel bad. Even the most experienced and accomplished authors sometimes don’t want to sit down in front of the keyboard. Everyone sometimes feels uninspired, tired, overwhelmed, or just plain clueless about what to do next.

The trick is learning how to do it anyway. The most important facet of becoming a good writer is momentum. You want to put some time aside to write or work on your project every day, or nearly every day. This doesn’t have to be a lot of time and it doesn’t have to result in a huge contribution to your story. Even a half-hour can be enough, so long as you are still moving forward. Nor does it have to be writing. Work on your author website, do a profile for your main character, research literary agents. It doesn’t matter what you do or how much you do, so long as something is getting done.

My method is trying to get at least 500 words done at every sitting. If you can write more than that, it’s great; but no matter how tired or uninspired you feel, get those 500 words on the page. If they turn out to be crap, you can always delete it and rewrite it later.

Make no mistake, burnout is real and can be a genuine issue for writers if they are pushing themselves too hard. If you do need a break, set a firm limit. If you tell yourself you’ll take a week off and then will start writing again, make sure you start writing again when the week is over. Set an alarm or calendar notice on your phone if you need a reminder. Care for your mental health but learn to recognize when you genuinely need a break and when you are just making excuses. These limitations are different for every author, so my advice can only be so precise on this topic. Just try to get a firm understanding of what you are capable of—and then do your best.

How to write a book part two: Before you start

This is a continuation of my series on navigating the writing process. To see my first post in the series, click here.

As I said in the first entry in this series, there is no wrong way to begin writing. Start with what works best for you. However, before anything can be written, more planning and pre-manuscript work may need to be done first. Maybe you want to get a more fleshed-out idea of your story as a whole or you want to create a profile for your protagonist or other characters so they are more rich and developed.

 I, personally, try to chart out my writing beat by beat. This is essentially an expansion of my summary where I try to list out everything that needs to happen in terms of plot and character development. This doesn’t need to be concrete, and you can figure out the details later. For instance, I may know that if I want my character to have a final showdown against their nemesis at the climax of the story, they need to have an established relationship. They need to have previous confrontations so that they have the proper animosity in that final showdown. If you want there to be personal stakes like the antagonist having kidnapped the hero’s love interest, you know that they need to have absconded with them at some point.

This wider summary is a chance to start figuring out what needs to be in the book—and where it needs to go. You can start vague with an idea like “the protagonist has a showdown with the antagonist during the climax in Act Three, so they need to meet each other in Acts One or Two.” Then get more specific: “The climax occurs because the antagonist kidnapped the protagonist’s love interest, therefore I want the antagonist to kidnap the love interest at the end of Act Two.” In turn, this means their first meeting needs to happen earlier in the story than the end of Act Two. Perhaps the protagonist fails to stop the antagonist from kidnapping the love interest at the end of Act Two because the protagonist is not brave enough. This means that the protagonist has to learn bravery before they meet again at the climax of the story in order to rescue them, so something has to happen in Act Three where they gain courage.

Writing in this way can be a bit like a Sudoku puzzle. At first, you only know where a small amount of information is located. Yet, by working out through logic where those few pieces fit, you can see where corresponding pieces must fit within the narrative (or where they will not fit). Once you see where enough pieces fit, you will start to get a clearer picture of what the final story will look like. Eventually, you can even break this down further into a chapter-by-chapter summary and maybe even further into a scene-by-scene summary.

Some writers skip this step. They prefer to write in a more organic, spontaneous manner. In the writing community, this is often referred to as the “pants-er method.” It’s named this way because these writers “fly by the seat of their pants.” Those who like to plan things out and strictly structure their stories ahead of time are often referred to as “planners” because they plan things out and want to know what they are writing toward ahead of time.

Pants-ers like to allow the story to guide them rather than them guiding the story. There is merit to this. It can help make the story more unpredictable, can ensure motivations for characters feel natural, and helps authors avoid falling into the trap of inserting things into the story simply because it furthers the plot even though it otherwise doesn’t make sense.

For instance, if a character is kidnapped and escapes, why don’t they ask someone on the street to call the police for help instead of trying to stop the kidnappers themselves? You, the writer, know that you want the victim to fight back against the kidnappers, but logically it doesn’t make sense unless you take measures to circumvent such a plot hole (like they’re in the middle of nowhere or it was established earlier that cell service was down). The pants-er method makes it easier to avoid this because the characters are acting in the moment. The downside of the pants-er method is that this can easily lead to the writer being stuck. If the victim just calls the police, then they never confront their kidnapper, never grow as a character, and you end up with a flat, boring ending.

As is probably evident in my Sudoku method, I definitely fall more in the planner camp than the pants-er camp. However, in my experience, there has to be a little planning in every pants-er and a little improvisation in every planner. A story with no structure is very difficult to write and can often lead to dead ends, writer’s block, or a lack of satisfaction at where the story goes. Likewise, even the most dedicated planner needs some improvisation in their story. If a character turns out more annoying than comical, you need to adjust how that character is presented. If you write two characters and they have unforeseen romantic chemistry that wasn’t included in the original outline, then perhaps that needs to be added in.

Another key facet for many writers in the pre-writing phase is doing research. For a genre like historical fiction, I highly recommend it. Learn about what you are writing about. For instance, if you have a story set in World War II, learn about the war and culture in the 1940s. If you start writing without doing this research, it usually becomes glaringly obvious. Historical inaccuracies are the most visible (don’t describe a character being an Air Force pilot if the Air Force wasn’t established yet) but not having a grasp of the language used at the time, pasting modern perspectives on characters from other time periods, or having them not act or think like people did at the time can stand out unless such characterization is backed up by a solid backstory and proper character development.

Nor is this limited to historical fiction. If you have a character in a modern contemporary setting, but who is a doctor, while research may not be necessary to describe their home life, it can be pretty clear to readers if they do not sound like a doctor while they are on the job or if they are using inaccurate medical terms or act inappropriately in regard to medical practices.

Character building is also a common technique that many writers use before the writing process begins in earnest. This means learning who they are as the writer so you can better describe them and show who they are throughout the narrative. If they are very tough and angry character, you want to know why they act tough and are so angry all the time. Perhaps they lived on the street growing up, so they had to develop a hard outer shell to protect themselves. Maybe they were taught by a parent or mentor figure that acting that way is the only way to get respect from others.

Ask yourself questions that may not necessarily appear on the page, secrets known only to the author or secret facts about the character that are merely hinted at in the text. Maybe that tough and angry character is shown having an otherwise uncharacteristic love of dogs because their pet dog was the only creature who showed them unconditional love when they were a child. Their childhood may not come up in the story but it’s the sort of detail that makes a character feel like a real person rather than a trope, cliché, or bland replaceable drone.

You can also ask yourself details which may or may not be relevant to the story. Do they have scars or injuries? What makes them happy? What makes them sad? What do they do on their days off? Even a cold-blooded hitman sits down, eats dinner, and watches TV. What do they eat, what do they watch—and why? Are they as cautious and anxious as they are when they’re on the job or is this a moment of vulnerability and relaxation for them?

This also is a good way to form a good idea of their appearance. One of the best pieces of character design advice I ever heard is that an iconic character should be identifiable by their silhouette. If I showed you a silhouette of a muscular man with a cape and pointy ears, you could tell it was Batman. If I showed you a silhouette of a slim lady in a coat, brimmed hat, and holding an umbrella, you could tell it was Mary Poppins. While not every character, especially in the case of minor characters, has to be so distinct, the reader should always be able to have a clear view of who they are and what they look like. Describe their eyes; are they kind, intimidating, always squinting, bugging out? Are they in designer clothes, jeans and a hoodie, a 70’s tracksuit? Is their hair unruly in long curls, high and tight, messy like a pile of straw? Is their build thin, fat, or muscular?

There are numerous checklists and forms that authors and publishers have created to give other writers a blueprint for mapping out who a character is. Here are some links to some examples.

One Stop for Writers has a good one I’ve used in the past. It requires a subscription but comes with a free trial here.
Here is another from Crystal MM Burton on Pinterest.
Here is a pretty basic one from DearWriters on Tumblr.

There are plenty of ways to prepare yourself so you have more tools in your arsenal before you start writing. Don’t feel you need to rush into your story—but don’t use it as an excuse to procrastinate either. The important thing is to keep that momentum going and always be making progress, even if that progress doesn’t necessarily mean writing text. We’ll talk more about that in a future post.

How to write a book: Beginning

Having completed three manuscripts and traversed the publishing process, I cannot call myself an expert on the industry by any means—however, I have learned a thing or two about how to write a book.

The first thing that I believe people should know if they want to become an author is that writing is a skill, not a talent. Writing is not something you are either born with or not, it is something that is learned. While it may come more naturally to some than others, no one starts out as an expert, and anyone can become an expert with hard work, education, and practice. Anyone can write a book.

The first hurdle many people experience is not knowing where to start. The feeling of opening up a fresh Word document or sitting down in front of a blank page is an intimidating one—but keep in mind that every masterpiece of literature ever created began at the very point where you are at now.

So, how do you start writing? The short answer is: however you want. If you have a particular scene in your head that you have a clear picture of, start there. If you have a good idea for a compelling lead character, try writing their biography. J.R.R. Tolkien started his famed fantasy universe by creating languages that would go on to become different forms of Elvish and Dwarvish. There is no wrong way to start writing.

However, if you have no idea where to begin or how to start coalescing your various ideas and concepts into a narrative, I would suggest the first step being constructing your elevator pitch. What is an elevator pitch? If you found yourself in an elevator with someone you wanted to pitch your story to, you would only have a few seconds to do so. You wouldn’t have the time to go into details, describe your themes, discuss your influences, and so forth. It is the bare bones of your story. I suggest starting here because the first person you need to provide with a clear understanding of your story is yourself. Once you establish to yourself what the book is in its most fundamental form, you can begin elaborating upon it and expanding those ideas outward.

What is in an elevator pitch? You may find many different answers to this question, but I think there are four primary elements it should include: who your protagonist or protagonists are, what their status quo is, the inciting incident that interrupts the status quo, and the challenge this creates that the protagonist or protagonists must overcome.

Let’s break this down.

• Who is your protagonist: Your protagonist is whoever’s point of view the story is told from. This can also be multiple people if you want your story told from different points of view. Ask yourself who this person is and why this particular story should be told from their perspective.

• What is their status quo: What is the starting point for this character? What is their life before the story begins? Is their status quo something they are trying to preserve or something they want to escape from?

• What is the inciting incident: If the status quo is your protagonist’s life before the story starts, the inciting incident is what changes or threatens to change that status quo. This is what sets the story in motion. It is an interruption of the familiar that forces the protagonist or protagonists to take action.

• What is the challenge the protagonist must overcome: Every story is about trying to overcome an obstacle or conclude a conflict. Your story can be about attempting to overthrow an evil galactic empire or it can be about a husband and wife trying to move on after the death of their child. Either way, you have a character or characters trying to get something done. This fourth step is essentially telling the listener what the bulk of the story will be about.

This may sound like a lot to fit into a sentence or two that could be described in the length of an elevator trip, but the trick is condensing it down into its most fundamental elements. Let’s return to Tolkien for a moment. The Lord of the Rings is a monumental three book epic with dozens of named characters, multiple character arcs, numerous sub-plots, and rich themes. Yet, its elevator pitch might sound something like this:

In the magical world of Middle Earth, Frodo Baggins led a quiet life among the peaceful Hobbit folk with his eccentric uncle in the idyllic Shire. However, he learns from the mysterious wizard, Gandalf, that the magic ring inherited from his uncle was created by the Dark Lord Sauron and he must travel to the heart of Sauron’s realm in order to destroy it and save all of Middle Earth.

Here, we see the structure of the story in the simplest terms. We learn who the protagonist is (Frodo Baggins). We see his status quo (Frodo exists in a fantasy setting and lives with his eccentric uncle in the idyllic Shire). There is the inciting incident (inheriting the ring and learning the truth of it from the wizard, Gandalf). Finally, there is the challenge (the ring must be destroyed within Sauron’s realm in order to save the world).

Obviously, this leaves a great deal out—but that is the point. While an elevator pitch can be very useful to describing the story to someone else, getting it in your head from the start of the story can be extremely helpful to a writer if you are having difficulty imagining what your story will look like by forming a solid foundation upon which to build. You, the author, now have decided where and when your story is, who it will focus on, what they are trying to accomplish and why. Don’t worry about getting all the details sorted out from the beginning. Build the foundation and then build on top of it, adding details, sub-plots, and other facets.

 If there is an addendum to these four questions, try asking these four additional questions to get a more complete view of your story. The four questions all essentially mirror the initial questions in your elevator pitch.

• How does your protagonist or protagonists try to fulfil the challenge from your elevator pitch: Once the challenge has been established, how do your characters try to meet it? This may be the toughest part to summarize as this is what the bulk of your story consists of—the trials and tribulations of the characters as they try achieving the story’s primary goal.

• Do they accomplish their challenge: Are your characters’ efforts successful? Perhaps they are and there is victory, celebration, and a happy ending. However, some stories are tragedies, and they are not successful. The story does not have to be about how the goal is accomplished, but instead about why it cannot be accomplished or learning something is more important than the initial goal.

• Is the status quo restored: Do the characters get to return the world as they knew it, or was that world forever changed as a result of the story? This ties in with the fourth point, which is …

• How does the main character change: A strong rule for creating any protagonist is that they cannot be entirely the same at the end of the story as they were at the beginning. A story is a journey and goes from point A to point B (albeit with numerous stops and diversions in between) and your protagonist lies at the heart of your story. While there are exceptions to this rule (perhaps the character has obstinance as a flaw and refuses to change despite needing to), this can be dangerous as this generally means they are a very flat, boring, unengaging character that most readers will not connect with or want to follow. This change can come in a number of ways; perhaps they become braver, maybe they fall in love, maybe their outlook on the world is forever altered, maybe they even die. This is the “character arc,” the path a character takes from where they enter the story to where they leave it. It establishes how you want your character to progress throughout the story. Establishing this early on can give you an idea where the character has to go and what they have to do throughout the story. For instance, if they gain courage by the end of the story, you know they must face trials and tribulations in which their courage is tested.

To return to the Lord of the Rings, adding these second four questions to the elevator pitch might look something like this:

Frodo and Gandalf form a fellowship of mighty heroes to escort him and the ring to Sauron’s realm of Mordor so he may destroy it. Although some of his companions die throughout the long journey and they are separated, Frodo makes it to Mordor while some of his companions unite the peoples of Middle Earth and fight against Sauron’s armies.

The ring is destroyed, Sauron is defeated upon its destruction, and Frodo returns to the Shire. Middle Earth begins to rebuild despite a great and terrible war. However, the trauma of his adventures leaves Frodo scarred and diminished. Bidding goodbye to his beloved friends, Frodo sails with Gandalf into the storied west so that he might finally know peace yet again.

By combing these eight questions together, you also have what is called a “summary.” This is a brief run-down of the whole story that professionals such as editors and agents may want to see in the latter stages of the publishing process. This makes it a good thing to keep around throughout the writing process, both as a guiding star and as a useful tool so you can explain your story to others.

 … But the convenient thing is that you don’t have to keep it the same either. Some writers, upon getting halfway through with a project, may find they want to fundamentally change what it is, by altering where they want the story to go, what they want to say through their writing, or how they want the readers to perceive the story. Do not feel bound by an elevator pitch or summary. Rather, use them as the spine of what you want to write—or as I said earlier, a foundation. You can change an elevator pitch or summary but always ensure you have a new one if you do. That way, you always have a solid, central idea of what you want the story to be.

Back at it

So, how does someone start a blog back up after not writing for a year?

Like this, I suppose.

Yes, I am writing here again. No, I am not dead. Honestly, it’s just because I’m just not a very blog-y kind of person. Still, if you want to be an author, you need to have a platform and like any metaphorical or physical platform, they are always more stable when you have a foundation. So even if there aren’t many people reading this right now, I want to put this site out there and give people some content if and when I start gaining some attention.

So what inspired me to start blogging again? Well, that brings me to my next topic: what I’ve been up to. When last we met, I had just finished my manuscript for “Northbridge.” I have since changed the name to “A Matter of Discretion” and hope to turn the exploits of the Giles Northbridge character into a series. Since finishing the manuscript I have gone through the slow and painful enjoyable and fulfilling editing process.

I went through two rounds of beta readers, who give me input to see what people who aren’t me think of the story. As part of this, I also hired a sensitivity reader to ensure I am being respectful and accurate in terms of minority representation in the story. In many ways, it’s like a different kind of beta reader, except that they are looking at a specific aspect of the story (and let’s be honest, we all have a few blind spots when it comes to how people might interpret our work).

Then I hired an editor. She was a very talented professional named Faith Black Ross. Her website can be found here. We went back and forth over the summer changing and tweaking “A Matter of Discretion.” The editing process is slow and hearing criticism for your work is never fun, but I’ve learned what I’ve always been told: it’s one of the most - if not the most - important parts of writing a novel.

Now I am looking for an agent. A literary agent is the person who represents you and your work and essentially shops it around to publishers. The good news about agents is they don’t get paid until you do, typically taking about 15% of your commission. The bad news is that you need to find an agent to represent you first (and, of course, there is no promise an agent will be able to find you a publisher, only that they will try their hardest to do so - if they’re good, of course).

Finding how to query an agent properly required a good bit of research in and of itself. Not to mention, you need to learn how to recognize the differences between a real agent and fraudulent or phony ones too. I think I will post a little more about the process in a few days. For now, I am going to sign off.

I will leave by saying that I am writing the sequels to both “Nuru” and “A Matter of Discretion” right now. More news will follow on those fronts as well.

Until then, I am glad to be back.

I hope everyone is having a nice plague

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven’t been posting lately. The good news is that I’ve been busy, the bad news is because, well, we’re living in fear of a horrible deadly virus.

So, journalism being the stable career its known for, I have been home for the last three weeks. Turns out newspapers need revenue to pay their reporters (who knew, am I right?) and businesses tend not to take out very many ads in newspapers when everyone is stuck at home and half of civilization is shut down. So, long story short: I’ve been at home without pay until my papers’ owners decide its feasible to bring everyone back to work.

However, this did give me days on end to write and I’m pleased to announce I finished the manuscript for “Northbridge &Co.” I’m showing the completed draft around to friends and family members and I’ll be looking for beta readers soon. If anyone is interested, make sure you shoot me an email.

If you’re curious about “Northbridge & Co.,” check out the page.

Stay safe,

Eamon

Featured on the Kit 'N Kabookle blog

I was recently featured on the Kit ‘N Kabookle blog, a great site that highlights fantasy, science fiction, mysteries, thrillers and more. 

I hope everyone enjoys the chance to learn a little more about myself and about “Nuru.”

You can find the link here.

How to self publish, part four

In part four of my series describing what I learned while self publishing my own book, I will discuss online resources and connecting with potential readers.

So, you've gotten your manuscript read by some beta readers, you're working with your editor, you've contracted an artist for a book cover . . . now what do you do?

You start building an online presence, that's what.

Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are all good platforms for letting people know who you are and giving them updates. Let them know about your progress, share interesting tips or advice you've gotten, and most importantly announce and publicize your releases.

Setting up a profile on Goodreads.com also is something I would highly suggest. Some reviewers will expect you to have one so they can check out your book; plus it's another avenue to get your name out there as well as the name of your book. It lets readers leave reviews and rate your novel as well, and your book could end up as a suggested book on other pages of similar books.

Social media should supplement a website, though. Without any sort of site where people can find out about you and your work you will look like an amateur. Squarespace is what I used to build mine and I was fairly pleased with it. It seemed like both an affordable option and one that gives you the creative freedom to make it look unique. As an author you should make sure to include a few things for certain. Post information about each book with as much art as you can provide, give readers an idea what those books are, and show people where they can buy them.

Also be sure to include some information about yourself and how to get in contact with you. Many writers are introverts and one of the most difficult things they find they have to face is not only marketing their books but also marketing yourself. You need to build up a personal brand and cement yourself as a skilled writer and a reliable content creator.

Once you have a manuscript in its final draft stage the next thing you will have to do is reach out for reviews by ARC readers. "ARC" stands for "advanced reader copies," and pretty much means it's a version of the finished book that you send to these reviewers prior to the actual publication. ARCs generally don't receive payment for a review. You are sending them a free copy of your book (and thus providing them with content for their own blogs and websites) and in return they are giving you a free, unbiased review. And I mean unbiased. They are not going to market your book for you, they are going to give their honest opinion on it and some people will not connect with what you write - it's not a knock against you, it's just an inevitability.

A great source for finding ARC readers is The Book Blogger List. Besides having a lot of resources for writers you should check out, it contains lists of blogs and websites full of potential ARC readers. Not all of them do ARCS, not all of them will want to review your work, and not all of them will review work in your genre, but you will find plenty who do.

Most ARCs will accept an eBook copy so long as you have it in the proper format. A mobi file is the most common, there's a good site where you can convert a Microsoft Word document to a mobi file for free at this link. Be aware that some reviewers will only accept paper copies and that would mean shipping a physical copy of the book to them, and shipping costs can add up. ARC reviews will come in handy when it comes time to market your book. Include positive reviews in one-sheets and other promotional material. Also make sure to link the reviews you get (at least the positive ones, heh) on your social media pages.

All of this is still a learning experience for me, and I expect it will always remain that way. I am currently still trying to market my first book and learning the ins and outs, but hopefully this will help someone else get a head start on their own process.

As always, good luck.

Eamon

A Blue Million Books interview

Reading and writing blog “A Blue Million Books” posted an interview I did with them on their site so everyone should go check it out. HERE.

It was framed as a series of questions, some having to do with “Nuru” and others just about myself. It was a fun experience doing this (and the first time I have been the interviewee instead of the interviewer).

I hope you all like it.

How to self publish, part three

Continuing my blog series on my self-publishing process, we now get to artists.

The cover of my novel “Nuru,” created by artist Gaetano Caltabiano.

With a novel, you won't require a lot of artwork but at the very least you will need a cover. If you want to go for a bare bones cover with just a title, byline, and perhaps a symbol or simple image, this might be able to created by yourself or by a graphic artist. Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing, where I published by book, has a cover creator for just this purpose, but keep in mind that - contrary to the old saying - people do judge books by their cover. Your cover will be the first thing people see when they find your book so you want it to be something that catches the eye.

The cover ideally is a summation of what the book is. No one should look at a science fiction epic and think it could be an Agatha Christie-esque mystery. This can sound hard; after all, you spend months crafting a meticulous narrative involving tons of characters, settings, and themes and then you have to try and distill it all into a single image.

With my book, "Nuru," I tried to focus on some of the core aspects of the story when coming up with the cover. It's an adventure story, it's a fantasy, it's about a young character forced to face the world alone, it's about the invasion of an overwhelming and otherworldly force, and unlike most fantasy stories it replaces the traditional European milieu for a more African-inspired one.

If you look at the cover, pictured, you see the main character with a sword in his hand facing off against an oncoming tide of dark invaders on a Savanna plain that stretches out toward the mountains. I think that captured the things I was going for, and I was very pleased with the outcome. People who look at the cover will be able to insinuate most, if not all, of those concepts I singled out just by looking at the image. 

The best advice I can give is look at a lot of different book covers, especially those in the genre you are writing in. See what other authors and publishers try to say with their covers.

I found my artist on www.fiverr.com. I'm no expert in freelance artists, but this seems to be one of the premiere sites for finding artists for hire. Like all contractors and freelancers, you're usually going to get what you pay for, and a good book cover will cost $500 at the minimum unless it is a very simple image. Artists are no different than writers, they are skilled professionals and they need to be paid as such for their hard work and time.

Look for authors who have experience with cover art in your genre. Check out their previous work - and make sure you see previous work, the internet has no shortage of scammers. That's one of the advantages of a site such as Fiverr. They put your payment in escrow until you approve of the completion of the job. Be wary of people asking for payment in advance or those who say they will only be paid through PayPal or any other service where you can lose your money before knowing the job is completed to your satisfaction. 

Working with an artist can take time. Communicate your idea to them as clearly as you can. Send them sketches you may have made, samples of clothing or architecture you want to model part of your cover off of, and send any hints possible so the artist has an idea for reference. Explain to them the emotion you want to convey to potential readers, as well. The more information your artist has, the easier it will be for them and the closer the results will be to your vision.

Artists will usually send you some preliminary sketches before they start on the nitty gritty of the creation process. This is the time to make corrections, suggestions, or to ask questions about what your options are. Don’t be afraid to get specific. You hired them for a job and are paying good money for it - make them earn it.

One of the things I didn't think of before starting was whether I wanted just a front cover or a full cover. A front cover will have just what is shown on the front of the book, and if you're only releasing your book for eReaders, this is the way to go. It's cheaper and no one will see the rest of a cover anyway on an eReader. If you want to release hard copies in hardback or paperback, consider the full cover. It looks more professional and it give you some more room to work with to tease readers with.

Another thing I had never considered was font. Like the rest of the cover, it should communicate the tone of your book. Just google "fonts" or "exotic fonts" and you will find dozens of good sites full of suggestions and examples. Some may be unavailable to your artist as they would need to actually download the font (and be aware, some artists will charge extra to add text to the cover, assuming you will just add it later). Play with as many fonts as you can. The sites I mentioned usually let you type something in to see it in different fonts so get creative. If you are writing a fantasy story, make it look rustic and exotic. If it's science fiction, make it look strange and otherworldly, it's a 1920's mystery, look for a retro art-deco looking font.

Something else to keep in mind is ownership and rights of the image. When you contract with an artist, they are signing over ownership of that image to you so this is usually not a big deal so long as you make sure the contract is on the up and up. With photographs, it can get dicier simply because people are more likely to use an existing photograph or image. I advise against this whenever possible. Even if something is listed as stock art. First of all, stock art tends to be free for a reason. Second of all, when your using an image to sell something like a book, you need to ensure no one can lay ownership of that image and the internet's attitude toward attribution in general can be sketchy at the best of times.

Lastly, as I said at the start, with a novel you probably won't need art beyond the cover. However, the same advice goes for additional art you may want for your website. If you look at the different pages of my site, you will see some additional art related to the books I commissioned to help show off my writing. Like the cover, it's an investment. However, people are visual creatures and grabbing someone's attention with a strong, telling image can go a long way.

To finish up, here's a link to iWriterly's Youtube page. She's another writer who puts out videos with some great advice on writing and publishing. I highly advise you check her out.

That's it for today,

Eamon

How to self publish, part two

Part Two:

Continuing my series documenting my experiences self publishing my first novel, we now reach the fun part. 

And by "fun," I obviously mean terrifying.

Now that you've looked at your own work enough times to drive yourself crazy, it's time to get other people to look at it. Getting some friends or family members to look at your manuscript at this point is a good idea if you can convince them to do so. It's a matter of opinion, but I find it less intimidating to hand your work off to someone you know and trust before handing it off to a stranger. They can find any glaring issues with your work and tell you about them at a stage before you have to hear it from a professional.

The next major step you need to take is to find what are known as "beta readers." Beta readers will read your work either as a completed manuscript or chapter by chapter depending on preference and provide you with feedback. Some of these people are writing professionals, others are just people who enjoy reading and like being able to talk about it afterward. There's no one correct way to interact with betas, but the most common method is to send them a sort of survey for them to look at following the end of each chapter. Some of the most helpful questions I found were:

Could you clearly follow the plot? Why or why not?

Did you like the way XXXXX was introduced? Did you get a clear picture of who they are as a character?

What was your favorite part of the chapter?

What was your least favorite part of the chapter?

Also, don't be afraid to ask them specifics. Are you unsure if a character is coming across as likable? Does a particular scene feel unnecessary? Does a joke you added in a scene come across as tension breaking or as too strong a tonal shift? It's okay to ask beta readers such questions.

The other main thing betas provide are alternative perspectives. Everyone has blind spots. These blind spots can be as innocuous as misunderstanding the meaning of a word to something that could cause a reader to throw the book down such as unintentionally including a racial stereotype you weren't aware of. Don't freak out about these things, everyone has them, and this is the stage in creating your book when you want to catch them and fix them.

So how do you find beta readers? Among the easiest methods you can use is go onto social media and put out a call for them. This is actually how I found most of mine. Write a post stating you are looking for betas to read a book of a certain genre and hashtag it, so betas looking for work can find it. This isn't always reliable so I would suggest trying the bookblogger.com and fiverr.com, which hosts services for hire for authors. It can take some time, but search for beta readers looking for work on the sites and ask them if they want to review your work.

You want as much beta feedback as you can get, but keep in mind these are professionals performing a service for you, so you will have to pay them. It's usually about $1.00 per every thousand words. This may not sound like a lot, but if your manuscript is 80,000 words (which is fairly short for a novel), that's $80.00 to each reader. You want no fewer than five beta readers as well. Like I said in part one, writing a book requires an investment.

It's also at this stage you want to look for an editor. You want to take your time and find a good one. No matter how good you may be at self editing, an editor is necessary for many of the same reasons beta readers are necessary: they will see your book from an entirely different perspective. They will catch mistakes you miss, they will ask questions you don't think to ask, and they will notice aspects of your story you may be missing.

And when I say a "professional editor," I mean a professional one. A friend or coworker who is good at catching mistakes in writing is not enough. Professional editors are educated and trained to make sure your book adheres to a single type of grammar and style. Editing is one of those things where you get what you pay for, so don't scrimp. 

The best place to look for potential editors is the Editorial Freelancers Association (https://www.the-efa.org/). When self publishing, an editor from a professional firm or publisher is probably going to be difficult to hire and very expensive. A freelance editor is a professional who will be more available and more likely to fall within your price range. Expect to pay them at least $1,000 for a full novel length manuscript, though.

There are three kinds of editing for a novel. Developmental editing is a review of things like characters, story, themes, and so forth. Line editing is a review of things like consistency, tense, tone, and clarity. Copy editing is a review of things like grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Some editors charge separately for each of these services and some bundle them. You may enlist the services of two or three editors to cover each, but this can be dangerous since part of the editing process is consistency and you could potentially get opposing input from each editor.

I was lucky to have found someone I had known previously in college to work on my first book. She had become a professional editor and I hired her first as a beta reader and then when that worked out well, we discussed having her take on the project as editor. While most people won't have the luxury of having previously known their editor, it is important that they be someone you have a good working relationship with. Someone local is preferable so you can meet them face to face. Don't be afraid to ask them the hard questions and don't be afraid to disagree with them. They are professionals, so you always want to listen what they have to say, but talking something out that you disagree with them on is a fantastic way to sort through your vision for the book and how other people may interpret that vision. 

My helpful link for the day is the Youtube channel of Jenna Moreci, an author and blogger. There are several Youtube channels that are helpful to first time writers, but Moreci's was the most helpful one I found and her videos are short, punchy, and she releases new ones all the time. Check her out: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS_fcv9kBpDN4WWrfcbCrgw.

That's it for today. Next time we will handle how to hire artists for your book.

Eamon

How to self publish, part one

So having just completed my first novel, some people might be wondering how do you do that.

Well, I happen to be the perfect person to ask because when I started this process I had no idea either.

I am by no means an expert in the subject, but that's sort of my point. I came into this whole thing without any real concept of what it would take. My plan is to post several blog posts over the next few weeks chronicling how I navigated the process so it can hopefully help others do the same. 

I'm approaching the topic as if you just completed your first draft. I might make some follow up posts discussing advice I've found helpful for this, but for the time being this seems like a good starting point. The first step: read it. Do a thorough self edit. When you're done, do it again. If you have some time to spare, take a few days or weeks off. Give your brain some time to get some distance from the project and maybe work on something else. Then edit it again with fresh eyes.

Take it from someone who works as a reporter, no matter how many times you look at something or how many sets of eyes you have look at it, mistakes will still slip through. You have no idea how many newspapers have gone to press discussing an event at the "pubic library."

The next thing you want to do is start with some of the preliminary steps. If you plan on selling your book, you will want to register as an LLC, or limited liability company. This provides you with certain legal protections once you start publishing your book and allows you to deduct what you spend on creating your books since you are doing so as a business entity.

Which reminds me: publishing a book costs money. The costs are nothing that are going to break the bank, but it does require an investment. Hiring editors, buying ISBN numbers, paying artists and a dozen other things are going to cost you money before you are able to make a penny off your book. 

How do you register as an LLC? It varies state to state, but here's a good starting point on legalzoom.com: https://www.legalzoom.com/business/business-formation/llc-overview.html

Do your research. Even just google "How do I form an LLC?" and type in the state you live in. 

The other thing you want to do while you're in the self-editing phase is set up a social media presence. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are all good options. The more of yourself you can put out there the better. Include information about yourself as an author, information about the book, and anything else you can use to grab peoples' attention and get them interested in your book. Keep in mind, if you want to be a professional writer you want to come across like a professional.

I'm going to link some resources in these posts that I found helpful and my first is a reference book about self publishing that helped get me started. It is focused mainly on nonfiction writing since that is what the focus of her own books are, but it is a useful guide to anyone starting out called "You Can Write a Book!" by Julie Beyer, MA. She walks you through the first steps of writing and publishing in a very direct and easy-to-understand manner. I highly recommend it.

It can be found for purchase here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0976724685/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3

I hope you enjoyed this first post and will return for my next one: showing your work to other people and surviving the heart attack that follows.

Eamon

"Nuru" is for sale online

I'm proud to announce the release of my first novel, "Nuru."

I've been working on this project off and on for the last four years, interrupted periodically by new jobs, moving, and life in general. Self-publishing your first novel is a learning experience and I hope to share some of what I learned about the process over the next few weeks. Either way, this was a big step for me and I hope everyone enjoys the book.

It's a fantasy novel that follows the title character, Nuru. A teenager in a band of nomadic herders, his peaceful life is interrupted following an attack by a force of monstrous creatures out of legend. Finding himself alone in a hostile world, he has to navigate through remorseless cutthroats, scheming politicians, and mysterious forces marshaling in the darkness.

I wanted to create an adventure story. Something fast paced, but rich in lore. I wanted something readers could see clearly in their head with likable interesting characters. Whether I succeeded, I leave up to readers.

Like a lot of what I am writing there is a big focus on the concepts of good and evil, but I tried to find the human beings balanced between the two. Another big focus in the story is on loss and trauma as well as how they deal with it. The story focuses mostly on young people who have dealt with issues people twice their age would struggle with. There's a coming of age element that I hope people can relate to. We all have baggage, some of us more than others.

I approached the novel as a traditional fantasy story, but instead of building the world of the characters around the traditional pseudo-European model with castles and knights and fae creatures, I built it around traditional African culture and folklore. While I am hardly the first author to do so, it is still a very underutilized (yet incredibly rich) source of inspiration. Although it is a fictional world that stands apart on its own, my mental approach was asking what would have been happening on the other side of the world when Frodo was trying to destroy the One Ring or the Seven Kingdoms were fighting over the Iron Throne. What kind of stories could be told in these other lands with these other peoples?

The original drive for the idea came from discussions I was having online. I've always been a bit of an apologist when it came to the focus on traditional European culture in traditional fantasy; at least to an extent. I would argue that if the culture was supposed be inspired by western European cultures, it would make sense the people in the stories would be modeled after those in the same region. However, the question I kept hearing was "okay, then where are all the fantasy stories inspired by other parts of the world?"

And they were absolutely right. I needed to widen my horizons and I started to look at why fantasy as a genre seems to maintain so many of the same tropes from series to series to series.

What people often forget is that all of modern fantasy can be traced back to J.R.R. Tolkien, and one of the things Tolkien was trying to do with the Lord of the Rings and his other writings on Middle Earth was create a sort of alternate mythology for Britain. That's one of the reason there's so much Celtic and Norse influence in the cultures of Middle Earth. This fits with the world he was building and it made sense for the story he was telling.

However, the problem was that people who were influenced by Tolkien hewed too close to this approach so nearly all of what would become known as the fantasy genre was stuck on this pseudo-European medieval culture for a long time. While a few writers bravely broke away from this model, most were happy enough to keep writing about dwarves and elves and knights in shining armor. And don't get me wrong, I love dwarves and elves and knights in shining armor. I love "The Lord of the Rings" and "A Song of Ice and Fire" and "The Wheel of Time." But while I love taking inspiration from such creations, I wanted to try something different - and something that pulled me out of my comfort zone. I didn't want to make a new "Lord of the Rings," because I never could. I'm not going to out-Tolkien Tolkien. I can only be me, and that meant finding my own voice and that meant doing something different than the things I had read.

So, I ended up with "Nuru." It's intended as the first in a series; a series of how many I will have to wait and see. Although I do have an overarching outline for where it will go, how long it takes to get there is still to be determined.

It can currently be purchase at the Kindle Store on Amazon and can be found at: https://cutt.ly/xrxcNXH

A paperback release will take place in the next few weeks.

I hope you enjoy the book and I hope it is an enriching to readers as it was for me as a writer.

Eamon

Welcome to my site!

My name is Eamon Bernard and I am an author. Given my lack of proclivity toward computers and their mutual hatred toward me, I am still getting the hang of building this website. That being said, I think things are coming together.

I work as a journalist in the Detroit area by day and write novels by night because that is the particular flavor of self-harm that seems to appeal to me. I write … well, whatever I feel like writing. I have a proclivity toward fantasy and mystery and, as you’ll see on the site, those are the genres of the first two works I am publishing.

A lot of writers like to get all high minded and long winded about writing being a passion and how it’s art, but honestly, I just like telling stories. I was the kid daydreaming and staring out the window in the back of the classroom and I never really stopped.

I hope you become a fan, but I hope I can tell you a good story even more. Welcome to my mind.

It’s not boring

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  BernardTheAuthor

  I'm looking for a beta reader for my upcoming book "Northbridge & Co." It is a mystery novel set in 1910 London inv… https://t.co/1RtrG8CrDv

  Jul 28, 2020, 8:07 PM
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  BernardTheAuthor

  I’m not going crazy, you are. #writerthings #selfpublishing #outlining #quarantineLife https://t.co/d6A8swjk1E

  Apr 19, 2020, 1:01 AM
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  BernardTheAuthor

  Sorry for not posting in a while, but I am pleased to say I finished the manuscript for my next book "Northbridge &… https://t.co/GLHXf6o6q5

  Apr 8, 2020, 11:43 PM
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  BernardTheAuthor

  Kit N Kabookle has posted her review of “Nuru” in her blog along side a blog post I contributed to her site. Check… https://t.co/ntpvyrQ8Ug

  Mar 25, 2020, 12:46 PM
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  BernardTheAuthor

  I was interviewed by the Kit 'N Kabookle blog and got to share a little about myself and my new book "Nuru." I hope… https://t.co/aQprbOfRrw

  Feb 17, 2020, 8:35 PM
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  BernardTheAuthor

  Part four of my blog series documenting what I learned selfpublishing my own novel is up on my blog. This time I di… https://t.co/NIYPaBK13r

  Feb 7, 2020, 12:03 AM
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  BernardTheAuthor

  Reading and writing blog “A Blue Million Books” posted an interview I did with them on their site so everyone shoul… https://t.co/YenPyPLrkO

  Feb 4, 2020, 2:34 PM
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  BernardTheAuthor

  I am pleased to announce that my novel "Nuru" is now for sale on Amazon in paperback. I hope you all enjoy it!… https://t.co/IS503F5VU8

  Jan 29, 2020, 10:36 PM
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  BernardTheAuthor

  I just posted a new piece of art on my site to promote my upcoming book "Northbridge and Co." It was created by ar… https://t.co/7ClucZsR1a

  Jan 28, 2020, 2:20 PM
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  BernardTheAuthor

  Part three of my series discussing my first self-publishing experience is up on my blog. This time, I talk about wo… https://t.co/m4XZDS8YlZ

  Jan 27, 2020, 11:39 PM