novel – Page 21

Having already produced three novels and two collections of short stories, I’ve learned that it takes several drafts and many days and months of work to produce something close to a good story. That is vital to me.

I believe that the most important thing I’ve learned has come from reviews of my work. Judging from sales figures and comments I started to appreciate where my audience wanted to be taken.

In my novel writing, I started with Ten Days in Panama (a romance-based thriller). Next I tried more action with Beyond The Law (a crime-based thriller). My third project was experimental. I aimed to tie together a travel guide and story in Amsterdam Calling (a psychological thriller).

Each of my forays into the thriller genre have led to me tackling different sub-categories and this next one is different again.

A Taste of Honey is essentially a one-woman fight against evil. The evil in question consists of more than one perpetrator, so the heroine has to stay one step ahead of the law. Anyone who has read my novels or short stories will be acquainted with my style and desire to see justice.

Honey dishes out that justice in spades.

The story is set in the USA so it is no accident that I’ve spent many hours attempting to dig out the British English and replace it with a language that our American cousins would feel more at home reading. I don’t believe the reading experience is spoiled for the British reader, but I’ve no doubt I’ll find out soon enough.

From idea to publication has taken four months, so has that time scale created any issues?

It has created issues, if I was to say that I’ve hardly been near this blog, or anybody else’s blog. I devoted my time, day and night to this story. The final version is the sixth draft although I feel sure that I could have spent more time and refined it further. There comes a point when we have to say, okay the job is done.

If you do decide to try my latest novel, please consider leaving a review. I’ve taken the precaution of giving the story the option of a sequel, but a sequel will be dependent on how Honey’s introduction goes with readers.

In 2015 I will be producing a sequel to Beyond The Law.
I am now going to catch up with some blogs before I settle down to my next story. As always, thank you for reading and remember, comments are always welcome.

Okay, so things didn’t go exactly according to plan, but I’m happy with the result so far.

What was the plan?

My intention was to create a new character for a thriller, but invite input from anybody that wanted to put in ideas, for any aspect of the story. As with many things in life, it didn’t work out according to plan.

What went wrong?

I prepared and published an opening scene to try to inspire some ideas. Within a few days I had several contacts saying that folk liked the theory of it, and would like to take part. To cut a long story short, I got one concrete idea from somebody and a character name. I’ve used the character name, but the intention for the plot was too far off the mark. The only suggestion was good, but aimed at an international story. The research would have taken me until this time next year.

What went right?

I had my intro and a skeleton of a synopsis, but after several days of no feedback I set about inventing some more characters and started writing. By the time I’d written the close of the first chapter I knew where I was going and I’d discovered the pace at which to move the story forward.

I had responses from four people (fellow writers), who suggested I should go my own way to maintain my ‘voice’ throughout the story. If nothing else inspired me, then that certainly did and to come from more than one person was incredible for my confidence.

Where are we now?

1. In a little over six weeks I’ve written the first draft of the entire novel.

2. The first five chapters appear in this blog, still only at first draft. I have a lot of work to do.

3. I’ve already decided that there will be a sequel and have a working title.

4. There is a high possibility that in the sequel, certain characters from this new story will intermesh with the characters of the sequel to Beyond The Law.

5. I’m now leaving A Taste of Honey to settle for two weeks while I work on other projects, and then in mid-October I plan to start work on the second draft.

Is there a proposed publication date?

If I can work to my usual schedule and everything falls into place – mid-December 2014.

On that happy note, I’m now off to spend some time on the other novel that I have under construction, A Life of Choice.

Thank you for dropping by.

Tag: novel

A Taste of Honey – published

From idea to publication has taken four months, so has that time scale created any issues?