Can You Resist ‘Temptation’?

On 04/03/201702/04/2017 By TomIn Achievement, General, Insight, Novel, novella, Poetry, Promotion, Review, Short Stories6 Comments

‘I can resist everything except temptation,’ is one of my favourite quotes by the talented Oscar Wilde. The Irish essayist, poet and novelist produced many memorable quotes.

Temptation is one of those wide-ranging areas in life. Whether we go back to Adam and Eve, or consider a multi-million dollar robbery, we are reminded of temptation.

In this, my latest collection of short stories I’ve employed temptation as a core theme. In a couple of the stories it may be obscure. The tale may be dealing with an imminent allure, or the after effects. The final decision does not always follow the enticement, which is where I considered true entertainment would be found.

I’ve diversified as I usually do with the plots, by using a mixture of genre for the stories. I have featured vengeance, thriller, horror, romance, paranormal, sci-fi, contemporary, and sizzling romance (not erotica).

I’m a keen reader of short stories, and I derive tremendous pleasure from building a mini-world for characters who must come alive for their brief shot at fame.

Amazon – Preview/Buy BookLinker – Universal

On the subject of choices, I am like many writers, in that I am always on the lookout for another platform. On Facebook for example, I originally had a personal page, and after a long settling in period, I started an author’s page. Last year, I set up separate pages for Short Stories, Erotica, Poetry, and kept my original author page; Tom Benson – Writer.

Following a post by Val Tobin, who constantly produces great content for authors in her entries on Facebook, I took the plunge and set up an inter-active ‘shop on my author page.

Facebook suggests it takes about fifteen minutes to set up. Well, I don’t know what they were setting up, but by the time I got my head around the project and uploaded my titles and links, I’d used about three hours. The good news – the idea is working.

I left it for a day to recover from the titles/links overload and have now gone back to install ‘shops’ in my other three writing-related Facebook pages.

I’ll write a post on this idea soon if I see an upsurge in sales, although it would be nice to think any upsurge was purely because the books were so popular. I know, I know …. 😀

As always, thank you for your time, and any comments.

Beyond The Law – The Trilogy

On 12/02/201712/02/2017 By TomIn Achievement, General, Insight, Novel, Poetry, Promotion, Review, trilogy

The trilogy is completed with the publication of Beyond The Law: Consequences.

My character Phil McKenzie aka Hawk, was born in an experimental poem in July 2008. Due partly to the nature of the writer’s craft and to the evolution of a story it has taken until now to complete this trilogy of novels.

The first book Beyond The Law: Formation (originally titled Beyond The Law), was intended as a standalone when published in 2013, but as I received feedback it was plain to see I should develop the idea and the characters.

In the second story, Beyond The Law: Retribution, in order to maintain balance and credibility I took the story beyond the streets of Glasgow, and introduced more characters on both sides of the fence which separates good from evil. I continued with the aspects of the original story which had appealed to many readers.

It will come as no surprise, to bring a successful story to a close is a difficult decision, and no less difficult than how it should be done. I spent many hours considering how to further develop characters and what might become of them in a final story.

As an avid reader I am aware of the empathy felt for the heroes in a story, and in particular an ongoing story. Who should die? Who should live? How will the survivors if any move on?

Until I read feedback on Beyond The Law: Consequences I will suffer a long wait.

Sincere thanks goes out to Anne Francis Scott and Sarah Stuart who performed the task of beta reader for me, and gave me plenty of useful, insightful feedback. Every point highlighted and each recommendation was appreciated. My intention was to accredit these two fine authors in the front pages, but as many writers will be aware, the ‘cross-contamination’ of author names in Amazon can be lethal to all concerned.

I’d like to take this opportunity to say thank you to Aimee Coveney of AuthorDesignStudio who designed all three covers for this trilogy. In each case Aimee provided a variety of solutions based on my brief. We worked together as she took my initial vision to what have now become established and successful covers.

Aimee is now a member of the team at a new venture called Bookollective.

As always, I thank you for taking the time to read my post. Now, how far have you reached in the BTL story? If you do take the journey, please consider leaving a review.

Tom