Merlin Fraser's Blog
October 21, 2011
A Question Answered.
How much of a role does research play in your writing?
Here is a copy of a response I made to the question :
I would have to say research is crucial to any writing project, be it fiction or nonfiction.
When I started writing fiction I was told the main difference between ‘Fiction’ and ‘real Life’ was that Fiction had to be believable and I guess that is true if you do not want your readers turning away shaking their heads because your story lacks credibility.
Take my own fictional stories, I chose the banner title ‘INNER SPACE’ because within the stories I planned to explore the hidden recesses of the human mind. I believe that buried deep within the sub conscious of the human mind lies mental powers that we have lost over the eons of our evolution.
I say lost, although I also believe that it is possible that these mental powers have been deliberately suppressed as a means of self preservation from persecution from those who did not understand or more deliberately were determined not to understand those powers.
Prior to writing the Inner Space trilogy of books I did a lot of research into the subject of what is now more generally labelled ‘Paranormal Activity’ and my reading took me back through history to a point in time that preceded the coming of organised religion.
Now without getting into reams and reams of detail let me generalise more than a little by saying that there is more than a passing similarity of beliefs and skills between the ‘Pre History ‘peoples of the of world. Here I speak of the Nomadic tribes of Euro/Asia, the Native North American’s, the Indian tribes of Central and South America, the Aboriginal tribes of Australia, the Maori of New Zealand and many more.
Way back then these people could not have had any direct communications yet many of their cultural traits and customs are remarkably similar. Worship of the Sun, I would say is a given, allowing for the fact that it doesn’t take long to work out that without it we would not exist. However, fear of the unknown and the unknowing such as the power of natural forces like Lightning, Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Floods, leading to the superstitious creation of spirits and Gods.
Were these spirits old ancestors seeking revenge for past grievances leading to important questions to what lies beyond life ? So if you create spirits and Gods you have to have someone who can speak to them, find out why they are angry and what they require to make amends.
Such special people were called Shaman, Witchdoctor, Medicine man and it is believed that such people had the power to commune not only with the Gods but the spirits of the dead. They could spiritually leave they bodies at will and go in search of herds for the hunters or new places for the tribe to settle after disasters.
Such people were revered by the people but feared by the leaders of the new faith and therefore their own fate was doomed.
Now let’s play a game of ‘What If.’ What if one of the main characters in my books is right and these lost powers lie within us all. After all many people have had or have, at least, read about ‘Out of Body Experiences, sometimes referred to as ‘Near Death Experiences,’ What If that were merely the tip of the iceberg ? What if you could do it at will; what would you do, where would you go ?
To some it may sound like fun, a Cool thing to be able to do, just think of the stunts you could pull at parties. Now think that there could also be a darker side to the whole thing, such a power in the wrong hands for instance !
Welcome to the INNER SPACE world of Merlin Fraser and the challenge I set my main character British Police Detective Inspector Nick Burton, like most of us he doesn’t believe in such nonsense I converted him.... Can I convert you ?
After all it’s only Fiction isn’t it ?
Inner Space
Here is a copy of a response I made to the question :
I would have to say research is crucial to any writing project, be it fiction or nonfiction.
When I started writing fiction I was told the main difference between ‘Fiction’ and ‘real Life’ was that Fiction had to be believable and I guess that is true if you do not want your readers turning away shaking their heads because your story lacks credibility.
Take my own fictional stories, I chose the banner title ‘INNER SPACE’ because within the stories I planned to explore the hidden recesses of the human mind. I believe that buried deep within the sub conscious of the human mind lies mental powers that we have lost over the eons of our evolution.
I say lost, although I also believe that it is possible that these mental powers have been deliberately suppressed as a means of self preservation from persecution from those who did not understand or more deliberately were determined not to understand those powers.
Prior to writing the Inner Space trilogy of books I did a lot of research into the subject of what is now more generally labelled ‘Paranormal Activity’ and my reading took me back through history to a point in time that preceded the coming of organised religion.
Now without getting into reams and reams of detail let me generalise more than a little by saying that there is more than a passing similarity of beliefs and skills between the ‘Pre History ‘peoples of the of world. Here I speak of the Nomadic tribes of Euro/Asia, the Native North American’s, the Indian tribes of Central and South America, the Aboriginal tribes of Australia, the Maori of New Zealand and many more.
Way back then these people could not have had any direct communications yet many of their cultural traits and customs are remarkably similar. Worship of the Sun, I would say is a given, allowing for the fact that it doesn’t take long to work out that without it we would not exist. However, fear of the unknown and the unknowing such as the power of natural forces like Lightning, Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Floods, leading to the superstitious creation of spirits and Gods.
Were these spirits old ancestors seeking revenge for past grievances leading to important questions to what lies beyond life ? So if you create spirits and Gods you have to have someone who can speak to them, find out why they are angry and what they require to make amends.
Such special people were called Shaman, Witchdoctor, Medicine man and it is believed that such people had the power to commune not only with the Gods but the spirits of the dead. They could spiritually leave they bodies at will and go in search of herds for the hunters or new places for the tribe to settle after disasters.
Such people were revered by the people but feared by the leaders of the new faith and therefore their own fate was doomed.
Now let’s play a game of ‘What If.’ What if one of the main characters in my books is right and these lost powers lie within us all. After all many people have had or have, at least, read about ‘Out of Body Experiences, sometimes referred to as ‘Near Death Experiences,’ What If that were merely the tip of the iceberg ? What if you could do it at will; what would you do, where would you go ?
To some it may sound like fun, a Cool thing to be able to do, just think of the stunts you could pull at parties. Now think that there could also be a darker side to the whole thing, such a power in the wrong hands for instance !
Welcome to the INNER SPACE world of Merlin Fraser and the challenge I set my main character British Police Detective Inspector Nick Burton, like most of us he doesn’t believe in such nonsense I converted him.... Can I convert you ?
After all it’s only Fiction isn’t it ?
Inner Space
October 15, 2011
The Importance of Pricing.
This is a copy of the Blog I wrote for the "Adopt an Indie" about setting the price for our work.
As an ‘Independent’ author, whether you are new to the game or an old hand, sooner or later you come to the realisation that writing the book was the easy bit and perhaps your decision to go it alone might have been a little hasty.
Well take heart for you are not alone, we’ve all been there at one time or another and had the same nagging doubts and worries that perhaps we should have waited a little longer or tried a little harder to follow the mainstream to fame and fortune.
So I hope it reduces the ‘Niggle Factor’ if I say that even if you found a willing agent and were lucky enough to get signed up by one of the ‘Biggies’ chances are you wouldn’t be any further forward than you are now.
You see it is a complete fallacy that once you are signed up that your fortune is assured, nice dream but it just doesn’t happen like that. It’s all about economics and where the Big Guys think they are going to get the best return for their PR Marketing budget. Or as the Yanks put it, “Get the best Bang for their Buck!”
Therefore as the new kid on the block they will send you forth with a couple of general Press releases and tell you to go forth and promote yourself, or words to that affect.
Difference between them and us.... We are working for ourselves, we put in the effort and hard work we reap the rewards. Our counterparts, on the other hand are part of the machine, they do most of the work and get only the same small royalty they would have got if someone else had done all the work, only we know there is nobody else working on the project.
OK, now you’re starting to feel better about your decision, onwards and upwards we go. We are on our own, just another little fish in a vast ocean so we now have to take off our ‘author’ hat and put on the ‘marketing’ one instead.
Of course here I am assuming you have done all the other important little bits like getting your book properly and professionally proof-read and edited. Thus making your book the best it can possibly be. Everything about being an Independent author hinges on the word Independent, we either do things for ourselves or we arrange to have someone else do it for us, for a fee.
In that regard I cannot stress strongly enough the importance of ‘Proof-reading and Editing,’ get the best professionals you can afford. You owe it to yourself and every other genuine Independent author out there to improve the public’s opinion of us and help remove the stigma associated with Self Publishing..
Now come the choices, you have chosen how you are going to set up the book, using the likes of Smashwords or Lulu, chosen the format, book cover Etcetera... and now it comes to setting a Price.
Here we enter the realm of yet more soul searching decisions and of course, as usual, there are no hard and fast rules to follow, get used to it, it doesn’t get any easier, trust me.
A lot will depend upon what type of book it is, who the target audience is and how you intend to market and sell the book once it’s ready.
One of the first crucial decisions to make is whether to print the thing at all, now if that sounds a little silly given that we are talking about books here, bear with me for a second while I explain.
We are firmly in the technological digital age where it is now possible to read books on any number of devices from PC’s to mobile phones and a wide range of E Book readers in between.
There is no doubt, in my mind, that digital is the way of the future be it in word form or, if we wait a while longer someone will finally come up with a way to go from ‘Text to Speech’ on these devices without it having an American or Japanese accent or sounding like Stephen Hawking.
So whatever else you decide you will have to create an E Book and decide if you want and/or need a print version as well. Not the other way round, unless of course you just want half a dozen copies to dish out a Christmas presents, in which case you should stop reading and go put the kettle on.
With practice or a little help both formats are easy to achieve and you might feel a desire to have the best of both, however there is a plus and negative side for you to consider and this will involve the price of your book.
If you decide you really must have your book in print, you have two choices, Hardback or Paperback ! Again there are no rules here, the choice is yours but obviously the cost when it comes to actual printing will be higher and this reflects the final cover price. Forgive me if that sounded like a privileged glimpse of the blindingly obvious but I’m writing this blind and so it’s aimed at the novice rather than the seasoned veteran.
The rub with ‘Print on Demand’ (PoD) printers is one of those Plus or Negatives of Self Publishing, on one hand it’s great you can print off just one book. On the other hand the printers cost are going to be a lot higher per copy than say if you ran off a thousand copies.
The up side is if you only actually want one copy then you don’t have to build a garden wall with the other nine hundred and ninety-nine !
However by going down the PoD route you have little control over your cover price, this is going to determined by printing cost. You can of course select the cover price from a set of parameters and it will show you the return you will get per copy. (Assuming they sell of course ). This price will undoubtedly be higher than an equivalent sized book in the High Street. That is a disadvantage to us Independents and puts us immediately on the back foot when it comes to hard copy book sales.
It looks a tad arrogant when someone, not in the know, points out that your book is more expensive that a top ten best seller by a top named author, and believe me they will point it out !
So that’s a fairly important Pricing decision and one you cannot seriously control, true you can set the price low enough where everyone else is getting paid and therefore happy and you get nothing. However again I’m assuming you’re not here for the benefit of your health or as a charity worker on behalf of Amazon and the PoD printers.
Of course if you are selling online to your home market or you fancy hacking round the little book shops book signing circuit then you may have no choice but to print off a few books.
Now back to the Digital World of E Books, here the rules are completely different and the playing field is not only level between us and the big Publishing houses but dare I say it, it is actually tilted slightly in favour of the Independent.
Here we can not only take them on, on equal terms we can actually take the higher ground and all because of PRICE.
The big guys were very slow off the blocks in the digital market, just as they didn’t learn their lessons when the likes of Amazon took on and beat the High Street retailer when they reinvented the way books could be bought and distributed. Adopting the same casual approach the big publishing houses dismissed E Books as some sort of passing fad.
Here we take over the whip hand because if we are clever we are now in control and there is nothing they can do to take it back. Why, I hear you ask ?
Like a Horse Race, they are carrying a huge handicap one that they cannot shake off and that is the size of the empire they carry around with them.
True if they want to they can still magically create a Best Seller over night with lots of hype, all it takes is money. However, to do that requires a mighty machine and a lot of staff, all of which has to be paid for out of book sales.
Now, if sales figures are to be believed then E Books are starting to out sell Print, a Sale is a Sale is a Sale, as it were and if you look at the top name authors you will see the price of the E Book Vs the Print version is more or less equal. Why ? Because the Big Boys have to maintain the same margins to support the machine.
Here’s the Good News ..... “We Don’t !” So not only can we under cut them we can chop them off at the knees.
Now I know there are a lot of discussions going on in Author Internet forums and chat rooms about setting prices and under valuing our work by setting our prices too low and there are both good and bad points being made on both sides of the argument.
I did tell you the problems don’t get any easier and there is no easy answer because in reality both sides make excellent arguments in support of their opinion.
However, to save you oodles of time going through it all let me see if I can put the various points together logically and so help you see, if not an answer, at least a way to find it.
One school of thought is that you have spent years creating your masterpiece and you should not under value your efforts and set a low price.
The other side is the WalMart argument of ‘Stack it High Sell it Cheap.’
Now consider these other points:
We are totally unknown in the market so who in the right mind is going to buy an E Book from a NewBee with a price set as high as a well known author ?
Ask yourself would you rather sell 1,000 copies at £1 or 10 at £10 ? Try to realistically calculate the possibilities of making sales at either price.
We may like to think our work is worth £10 but it’s not what we think that matters it’s what the buyer thinks that counts.
I have three books out there in the Amazon Kindle Store, Book One is set at an ‘Eye Catching’ $1.99 (Or equivalent ) with the other two a little higher at $2.99.
I set these prices after a very successful $0.99 cent Summer Promotion Sale. The idea being ‘what’s a dollar ninety-nine’ cheaper than a cup of coffee, but it’s a gamble, if they take the small risk and buy Book One... like what they read and want more....
I could set the prices for books two and three a little higher and there is absolutely nothing to say that what I’m doing is right, or someone else who flatly refuses to set a low price is wrong. The only sure proof of any marketing theory is in sales and I have to say that since swallowing my pride and lowering my prices I am making sales.
I could just as easily left the price down there at $0.99cents, and maybe a few months ago I might have, however I feel sure you are aware that there is a movement in the E Book market where a portion of it has been taken over by a group of morons who think that all you need to be a writer is a keyboard and access to the Internet. They have taken over the 99 cent slot on the assumption that if you rob someone of just $1 they will not complain or demand their money back.
Needless to say this has all but ruined the $0.99cent promotional deal for serious authors because good readers are not going to plough through page after page of dross looking for the odd nugget of gold.
Hopefully the morons will tire of their idiot games and remove themselves when they find a new con to amuse themselves, perhaps Amazon will come up with a Crap filter and give us back an important marketing tool.
Either way it is important to learn that Price is an important advantage that we Independent authors have; Use it wisely.
As an ‘Independent’ author, whether you are new to the game or an old hand, sooner or later you come to the realisation that writing the book was the easy bit and perhaps your decision to go it alone might have been a little hasty.
Well take heart for you are not alone, we’ve all been there at one time or another and had the same nagging doubts and worries that perhaps we should have waited a little longer or tried a little harder to follow the mainstream to fame and fortune.
So I hope it reduces the ‘Niggle Factor’ if I say that even if you found a willing agent and were lucky enough to get signed up by one of the ‘Biggies’ chances are you wouldn’t be any further forward than you are now.
You see it is a complete fallacy that once you are signed up that your fortune is assured, nice dream but it just doesn’t happen like that. It’s all about economics and where the Big Guys think they are going to get the best return for their PR Marketing budget. Or as the Yanks put it, “Get the best Bang for their Buck!”
Therefore as the new kid on the block they will send you forth with a couple of general Press releases and tell you to go forth and promote yourself, or words to that affect.
Difference between them and us.... We are working for ourselves, we put in the effort and hard work we reap the rewards. Our counterparts, on the other hand are part of the machine, they do most of the work and get only the same small royalty they would have got if someone else had done all the work, only we know there is nobody else working on the project.
OK, now you’re starting to feel better about your decision, onwards and upwards we go. We are on our own, just another little fish in a vast ocean so we now have to take off our ‘author’ hat and put on the ‘marketing’ one instead.
Of course here I am assuming you have done all the other important little bits like getting your book properly and professionally proof-read and edited. Thus making your book the best it can possibly be. Everything about being an Independent author hinges on the word Independent, we either do things for ourselves or we arrange to have someone else do it for us, for a fee.
In that regard I cannot stress strongly enough the importance of ‘Proof-reading and Editing,’ get the best professionals you can afford. You owe it to yourself and every other genuine Independent author out there to improve the public’s opinion of us and help remove the stigma associated with Self Publishing..
Now come the choices, you have chosen how you are going to set up the book, using the likes of Smashwords or Lulu, chosen the format, book cover Etcetera... and now it comes to setting a Price.
Here we enter the realm of yet more soul searching decisions and of course, as usual, there are no hard and fast rules to follow, get used to it, it doesn’t get any easier, trust me.
A lot will depend upon what type of book it is, who the target audience is and how you intend to market and sell the book once it’s ready.
One of the first crucial decisions to make is whether to print the thing at all, now if that sounds a little silly given that we are talking about books here, bear with me for a second while I explain.
We are firmly in the technological digital age where it is now possible to read books on any number of devices from PC’s to mobile phones and a wide range of E Book readers in between.
There is no doubt, in my mind, that digital is the way of the future be it in word form or, if we wait a while longer someone will finally come up with a way to go from ‘Text to Speech’ on these devices without it having an American or Japanese accent or sounding like Stephen Hawking.
So whatever else you decide you will have to create an E Book and decide if you want and/or need a print version as well. Not the other way round, unless of course you just want half a dozen copies to dish out a Christmas presents, in which case you should stop reading and go put the kettle on.
With practice or a little help both formats are easy to achieve and you might feel a desire to have the best of both, however there is a plus and negative side for you to consider and this will involve the price of your book.
If you decide you really must have your book in print, you have two choices, Hardback or Paperback ! Again there are no rules here, the choice is yours but obviously the cost when it comes to actual printing will be higher and this reflects the final cover price. Forgive me if that sounded like a privileged glimpse of the blindingly obvious but I’m writing this blind and so it’s aimed at the novice rather than the seasoned veteran.
The rub with ‘Print on Demand’ (PoD) printers is one of those Plus or Negatives of Self Publishing, on one hand it’s great you can print off just one book. On the other hand the printers cost are going to be a lot higher per copy than say if you ran off a thousand copies.
The up side is if you only actually want one copy then you don’t have to build a garden wall with the other nine hundred and ninety-nine !
However by going down the PoD route you have little control over your cover price, this is going to determined by printing cost. You can of course select the cover price from a set of parameters and it will show you the return you will get per copy. (Assuming they sell of course ). This price will undoubtedly be higher than an equivalent sized book in the High Street. That is a disadvantage to us Independents and puts us immediately on the back foot when it comes to hard copy book sales.
It looks a tad arrogant when someone, not in the know, points out that your book is more expensive that a top ten best seller by a top named author, and believe me they will point it out !
So that’s a fairly important Pricing decision and one you cannot seriously control, true you can set the price low enough where everyone else is getting paid and therefore happy and you get nothing. However again I’m assuming you’re not here for the benefit of your health or as a charity worker on behalf of Amazon and the PoD printers.
Of course if you are selling online to your home market or you fancy hacking round the little book shops book signing circuit then you may have no choice but to print off a few books.
Now back to the Digital World of E Books, here the rules are completely different and the playing field is not only level between us and the big Publishing houses but dare I say it, it is actually tilted slightly in favour of the Independent.
Here we can not only take them on, on equal terms we can actually take the higher ground and all because of PRICE.
The big guys were very slow off the blocks in the digital market, just as they didn’t learn their lessons when the likes of Amazon took on and beat the High Street retailer when they reinvented the way books could be bought and distributed. Adopting the same casual approach the big publishing houses dismissed E Books as some sort of passing fad.
Here we take over the whip hand because if we are clever we are now in control and there is nothing they can do to take it back. Why, I hear you ask ?
Like a Horse Race, they are carrying a huge handicap one that they cannot shake off and that is the size of the empire they carry around with them.
True if they want to they can still magically create a Best Seller over night with lots of hype, all it takes is money. However, to do that requires a mighty machine and a lot of staff, all of which has to be paid for out of book sales.
Now, if sales figures are to be believed then E Books are starting to out sell Print, a Sale is a Sale is a Sale, as it were and if you look at the top name authors you will see the price of the E Book Vs the Print version is more or less equal. Why ? Because the Big Boys have to maintain the same margins to support the machine.
Here’s the Good News ..... “We Don’t !” So not only can we under cut them we can chop them off at the knees.
Now I know there are a lot of discussions going on in Author Internet forums and chat rooms about setting prices and under valuing our work by setting our prices too low and there are both good and bad points being made on both sides of the argument.
I did tell you the problems don’t get any easier and there is no easy answer because in reality both sides make excellent arguments in support of their opinion.
However, to save you oodles of time going through it all let me see if I can put the various points together logically and so help you see, if not an answer, at least a way to find it.
One school of thought is that you have spent years creating your masterpiece and you should not under value your efforts and set a low price.
The other side is the WalMart argument of ‘Stack it High Sell it Cheap.’
Now consider these other points:
We are totally unknown in the market so who in the right mind is going to buy an E Book from a NewBee with a price set as high as a well known author ?
Ask yourself would you rather sell 1,000 copies at £1 or 10 at £10 ? Try to realistically calculate the possibilities of making sales at either price.
We may like to think our work is worth £10 but it’s not what we think that matters it’s what the buyer thinks that counts.
I have three books out there in the Amazon Kindle Store, Book One is set at an ‘Eye Catching’ $1.99 (Or equivalent ) with the other two a little higher at $2.99.
I set these prices after a very successful $0.99 cent Summer Promotion Sale. The idea being ‘what’s a dollar ninety-nine’ cheaper than a cup of coffee, but it’s a gamble, if they take the small risk and buy Book One... like what they read and want more....
I could set the prices for books two and three a little higher and there is absolutely nothing to say that what I’m doing is right, or someone else who flatly refuses to set a low price is wrong. The only sure proof of any marketing theory is in sales and I have to say that since swallowing my pride and lowering my prices I am making sales.
I could just as easily left the price down there at $0.99cents, and maybe a few months ago I might have, however I feel sure you are aware that there is a movement in the E Book market where a portion of it has been taken over by a group of morons who think that all you need to be a writer is a keyboard and access to the Internet. They have taken over the 99 cent slot on the assumption that if you rob someone of just $1 they will not complain or demand their money back.
Needless to say this has all but ruined the $0.99cent promotional deal for serious authors because good readers are not going to plough through page after page of dross looking for the odd nugget of gold.
Hopefully the morons will tire of their idiot games and remove themselves when they find a new con to amuse themselves, perhaps Amazon will come up with a Crap filter and give us back an important marketing tool.
Either way it is important to learn that Price is an important advantage that we Independent authors have; Use it wisely.
August 6, 2011
An Interview with Merlin Fraser author of the Inner Space trilogy of Nick Burton murder mystery stories.
Q 1: How long have you been writing fiction in a serious way?
I first started about six, seven years ago with an idea for a children’s television series before discovering I knew nothing about writing for the screen. I was convinced the idea was good and started to write it down in a story. I still have it on file somewhere but never took it any further than that. However, by that time I had been bitten by the bug.
Q 2: How does writing fiction make you feel?
Like a General in charge of an army. Everything and everybody is there for you to command, you get to decide who lives and who dies, it’s quite a buzz.
Q 3: Has your feeling about writing changed over time?
Frustration is the biggest single change to come for any new writer when you finally realize that you have created, what you think, is this great masterpiece and it remains a secret because it is hard to bring your work to market. I sometimes think that if I knew then what I know now, I might never have started. It’s a tough world, but I still dream one day…
Q 4: What do you see as some of your strong points?
I’m a fighter, either that or I’m too dumb to quit.
Q 5: What do you see as your weak spot in writing? Are you working on that, and how?
My weakness is my inability to convince the publishing world I exist. Getting my work before the reading public is my greatest challenge it’s like pushing water uphill. But like a lot of other writers I keep plugging away, you have to the alternative is to quit trying.
Q 6: Tell us a bit about the project you're working on right now.
‘Inner Space,’ is a trilogy of stories exploring the lost or hidden powers of the human mind, hence the name. The stories take the form of murder mysteries involving a police detective whose world, and beliefs, are turned upside down by a series of bewildering events. He has to turn to a university professor studying ‘Near Death’ experiences to find answers.
Books One and Two are already in print and Book Three is right behind, all three will be made available in E Book format as soon as I can work out the software, it should come with a ten year old, but doesn’t.
Q 7: How do you get ideas?
I have quite a vivid imagination. There are many things that interest me, for instance the Supernatural and Paranormal. I read once that we humans can control only about 20% of our brain function. Another 20% is reserved for the automatic side of life like breathing and other bodily functions. I wondered what the other 60% was up to. There are amazing stories of people who have had ‘Out of Body’ experiences, usually as a result of a Near Death incident. I found myself wondering ‘What If,’ What if you could leave your body at will, where would you go, what would you do? In Inner Space, I explore the darker side of ‘What If.’
Q 8: When writing a book, do you work from page 1 and go steady towards a first draft? Or do you work in several sections of the story all at once?
I spend a long time thinking about the plot, and I will write down a lot of notes, mainly as memory aids, but usually by the time I sit down to write I have a clear idea where I’m going. Getting a story to flow in the first instance is hard, but once it starts to roll I’m a lot happier. When I start to write, I don’t necessarily know how it will end; however, when you have the ending set in your head it is easier to write towards it.
Q 9: Do you edit your own work??
Yes, and No! When the creative juices flow, I never stop writing no matter what, I ignore spelling and grammar, everything, I just keep going until I hit a wall or run out of steam. I will leave it for a day or so and then go back and reread it. Sometimes a lot of it will be rubbish and get binned. I’m very lucky that I have one or two good and honest friends who will read the story as it goes along. They will tell me if I’ve lost them or if I’ve lost the plot or I’m waffling on.
Q 10: Who else do you consult about your work prior to publication?
I have a proof-reader and someone who corrects my grammar when I get carried away. I have a great cover artist. Recently, I joined a couple of great Internet sites where I have met fellow writers, we share thoughts and ideas, and I have found a wonderful wealth of talent who want to help.
Q 11: What is your genre, if you should put a label on your writing??
Tough one, I wander around. The first thing I wrote was a magical fantasy, but I enjoyed writing the Inner Space Murder Mysteries, although I steer clear of the ‘Who Dunit’ genre. There are people far better at those than I am, and it’s hard to be different. I am in the process of writing a children’s story, as an experiment, and that is what it is because I don’t have any children of my own, but it’s in my head and the only thing to do with that is write it down.
Q 12: Do you build characters and scenes in a systematic way?
My characters are loosely based on people I know or have known, or bits of them, so when a situation develops in the story I know how each character will react. That is, take it in their stride, run and hide or just faint. Scenes develop along with the plot line, again I draw on my own knowledge and travel experiences, although to write Inner Space I had to visit the city of Cambridge for background. I needed a university that everyone would recognise, and Collin Dexter had already pinched Oxford.
Q 13: Do you sketch out your story and plot before you start a new project?
Not really, lots of notes and jottings, but mostly it’s already in my head. If there are inaccuracies, they will show up as I start writing, and I can modify or adapt as I go along.
Q 14: How do you feel about getting literary critique for your work?
Depends on the mood I’m in at the time. It is an important part of a writer’s life and is vital if you want to get on and improve your writing and techniques. Although it can be a double edged sword: Constructive criticism I can take; I know I’ll never be up there with the greats of literature, I don’t need some newspaper hack to tell me.
Q 15: On a scale from 1 to 100, how content are you with your own writing?
50. I don’t think any writer is ever content with their writing it’s a project you start and finish mainly to get it out of your head. When you go back and review it, you always think you could have done it better. Least ways I always seem to do that.
Q 16: Are you exploring new themes and ideas to write about, if so which ones?
All the time; As I mentioned earlier, I am exploring a new idea for a children’s story, I have a political murder mystery bouncing around in my head, a sort of follow on from Inner Space but a lot darker.
Q 17: Anything else you'd like to add for our readers?
If you’re a writer, or like me a ‘wannabe,’ don’t give up trying, we have chosen a lonely and tough world to try and conquer and there’s a lot of us out there.
If you’re a reader, then seek out Inner Space and help me to stave off starvation.
Merlin, thank you very much indeed!/b>
Thank you for this wonderful opportunity!
(c) Copyright 2010
This interview was prepared by:
Novelty - The Literary Showcase
http://www.novelty-fiction.com/
Sign up for our free monthly literary journal: Novelty - Stories & Perspectives
Inner Space
I first started about six, seven years ago with an idea for a children’s television series before discovering I knew nothing about writing for the screen. I was convinced the idea was good and started to write it down in a story. I still have it on file somewhere but never took it any further than that. However, by that time I had been bitten by the bug.
Q 2: How does writing fiction make you feel?
Like a General in charge of an army. Everything and everybody is there for you to command, you get to decide who lives and who dies, it’s quite a buzz.
Q 3: Has your feeling about writing changed over time?
Frustration is the biggest single change to come for any new writer when you finally realize that you have created, what you think, is this great masterpiece and it remains a secret because it is hard to bring your work to market. I sometimes think that if I knew then what I know now, I might never have started. It’s a tough world, but I still dream one day…
Q 4: What do you see as some of your strong points?
I’m a fighter, either that or I’m too dumb to quit.
Q 5: What do you see as your weak spot in writing? Are you working on that, and how?
My weakness is my inability to convince the publishing world I exist. Getting my work before the reading public is my greatest challenge it’s like pushing water uphill. But like a lot of other writers I keep plugging away, you have to the alternative is to quit trying.
Q 6: Tell us a bit about the project you're working on right now.
‘Inner Space,’ is a trilogy of stories exploring the lost or hidden powers of the human mind, hence the name. The stories take the form of murder mysteries involving a police detective whose world, and beliefs, are turned upside down by a series of bewildering events. He has to turn to a university professor studying ‘Near Death’ experiences to find answers.
Books One and Two are already in print and Book Three is right behind, all three will be made available in E Book format as soon as I can work out the software, it should come with a ten year old, but doesn’t.
Q 7: How do you get ideas?
I have quite a vivid imagination. There are many things that interest me, for instance the Supernatural and Paranormal. I read once that we humans can control only about 20% of our brain function. Another 20% is reserved for the automatic side of life like breathing and other bodily functions. I wondered what the other 60% was up to. There are amazing stories of people who have had ‘Out of Body’ experiences, usually as a result of a Near Death incident. I found myself wondering ‘What If,’ What if you could leave your body at will, where would you go, what would you do? In Inner Space, I explore the darker side of ‘What If.’
Q 8: When writing a book, do you work from page 1 and go steady towards a first draft? Or do you work in several sections of the story all at once?
I spend a long time thinking about the plot, and I will write down a lot of notes, mainly as memory aids, but usually by the time I sit down to write I have a clear idea where I’m going. Getting a story to flow in the first instance is hard, but once it starts to roll I’m a lot happier. When I start to write, I don’t necessarily know how it will end; however, when you have the ending set in your head it is easier to write towards it.
Q 9: Do you edit your own work??
Yes, and No! When the creative juices flow, I never stop writing no matter what, I ignore spelling and grammar, everything, I just keep going until I hit a wall or run out of steam. I will leave it for a day or so and then go back and reread it. Sometimes a lot of it will be rubbish and get binned. I’m very lucky that I have one or two good and honest friends who will read the story as it goes along. They will tell me if I’ve lost them or if I’ve lost the plot or I’m waffling on.
Q 10: Who else do you consult about your work prior to publication?
I have a proof-reader and someone who corrects my grammar when I get carried away. I have a great cover artist. Recently, I joined a couple of great Internet sites where I have met fellow writers, we share thoughts and ideas, and I have found a wonderful wealth of talent who want to help.
Q 11: What is your genre, if you should put a label on your writing??
Tough one, I wander around. The first thing I wrote was a magical fantasy, but I enjoyed writing the Inner Space Murder Mysteries, although I steer clear of the ‘Who Dunit’ genre. There are people far better at those than I am, and it’s hard to be different. I am in the process of writing a children’s story, as an experiment, and that is what it is because I don’t have any children of my own, but it’s in my head and the only thing to do with that is write it down.
Q 12: Do you build characters and scenes in a systematic way?
My characters are loosely based on people I know or have known, or bits of them, so when a situation develops in the story I know how each character will react. That is, take it in their stride, run and hide or just faint. Scenes develop along with the plot line, again I draw on my own knowledge and travel experiences, although to write Inner Space I had to visit the city of Cambridge for background. I needed a university that everyone would recognise, and Collin Dexter had already pinched Oxford.
Q 13: Do you sketch out your story and plot before you start a new project?
Not really, lots of notes and jottings, but mostly it’s already in my head. If there are inaccuracies, they will show up as I start writing, and I can modify or adapt as I go along.
Q 14: How do you feel about getting literary critique for your work?
Depends on the mood I’m in at the time. It is an important part of a writer’s life and is vital if you want to get on and improve your writing and techniques. Although it can be a double edged sword: Constructive criticism I can take; I know I’ll never be up there with the greats of literature, I don’t need some newspaper hack to tell me.
Q 15: On a scale from 1 to 100, how content are you with your own writing?
50. I don’t think any writer is ever content with their writing it’s a project you start and finish mainly to get it out of your head. When you go back and review it, you always think you could have done it better. Least ways I always seem to do that.
Q 16: Are you exploring new themes and ideas to write about, if so which ones?
All the time; As I mentioned earlier, I am exploring a new idea for a children’s story, I have a political murder mystery bouncing around in my head, a sort of follow on from Inner Space but a lot darker.
Q 17: Anything else you'd like to add for our readers?
If you’re a writer, or like me a ‘wannabe,’ don’t give up trying, we have chosen a lonely and tough world to try and conquer and there’s a lot of us out there.
If you’re a reader, then seek out Inner Space and help me to stave off starvation.
Merlin, thank you very much indeed!/b>
Thank you for this wonderful opportunity!
(c) Copyright 2010
This interview was prepared by:
Novelty - The Literary Showcase
http://www.novelty-fiction.com/
Sign up for our free monthly literary journal: Novelty - Stories & Perspectives
Inner Space
July 20, 2011
The Inner Space Trilogy
As a recent arrival to Goodreads I thought it only fair that I should introduce myself and my books. I am the author of a trilogy of Murder Mystery stories set along the Thames Valley region here in England.
I can imagine that if Crime and Mystery is your favourite Genre then I can hear you questions; how is it possible for a new writer to come along and be different, after all there are just so many ways you can murder someone and just so many ways for the police hero to investigate and bring the bad guys to justice.
As an avid fan of the likes of Agatha Christie, Ruth Rendell, Colin Dexter, Arthur Conan Doyle, Etc the list seems endless. Yet year on year new talent comes along and surprises us and I hope that I hope can do that.
The series of stories comes under the banner of “INNER SPACE,” and unless you cannot guess where that may be it is the unexplored space of the human mind. You see I have long held a theory that long, long ago certain human beings possessed great mental powers including the ability to levitate and mentally leave their earthly body at will.
We have long since lost those powers or suppressed them so deep within our minds that we are powerless to retrieve them. But what if we could, What if the stories we read about ‘Out of Body’ or ‘Near Death’ experiences are really part of that lost ability resurfacing in moments of extreme crisis ? What if we could do it at will ?
These are not wild Supernatural flights of fancy, there are no dragons and wizards; in my stories I take ordinary everyday people and turn their world upside down, I challenge everything they once held to be real and true until I can open their minds to other possibilities.
Take my main character, police detective Inspector Nick Burton, he is no super hero, he’s no James Bond that’s for sure, in fact in the beginning you may find him a little dull and even he wouldn’t argue with you. In the midst of what we call a mid life crisis Nick is quietly floating through life. Forty five years of age, recently divorced from a loveless and childless marriage he now has little left in life except his job and that saddens him.
Until one day arriving back at his police station after a wasted day trip to Wales he discovers his immediate supervisor, Chief Superintendent Davis has been arrested for murder. Nick can’t or won’t accept this information and along with everyone else is convinced his boss has been framed.
The situation doesn’t get any better when Davis supposedly confesses to the crime but is later found dead in his police cell. Now Nick is convinced that something rotten is going on and is Hell bent on clearing his friend’s name.
So, I ask you the same question I ask of Nick Burton; “How well do you know your best friend ?”
If you are a Murder Mystery Fan have I whet your appetite to find out more ?
How about another little bonus.... If you have an E Reader you can download all three Inner Space Books for just £0.99 pence each. Now that has to be a bargain, that’s cheaper than a decent cup of coffee ! That and when you consider Colin Dexter’s last Inspector Morse book will set you back £5.50...
I can’t tell you I’m as good a story teller as he is, that’s up to you to tell me, however I could ask is he nearly six times better than I am ?
Surely it’s worth a pound to find out and at the same time answer the question you asked right at the beginning; “Can a new writer come along with something new ?” Three stories, same main characters I think I can keep you entertained and guessing to the end of each story !
I can imagine that if Crime and Mystery is your favourite Genre then I can hear you questions; how is it possible for a new writer to come along and be different, after all there are just so many ways you can murder someone and just so many ways for the police hero to investigate and bring the bad guys to justice.
As an avid fan of the likes of Agatha Christie, Ruth Rendell, Colin Dexter, Arthur Conan Doyle, Etc the list seems endless. Yet year on year new talent comes along and surprises us and I hope that I hope can do that.
The series of stories comes under the banner of “INNER SPACE,” and unless you cannot guess where that may be it is the unexplored space of the human mind. You see I have long held a theory that long, long ago certain human beings possessed great mental powers including the ability to levitate and mentally leave their earthly body at will.
We have long since lost those powers or suppressed them so deep within our minds that we are powerless to retrieve them. But what if we could, What if the stories we read about ‘Out of Body’ or ‘Near Death’ experiences are really part of that lost ability resurfacing in moments of extreme crisis ? What if we could do it at will ?
These are not wild Supernatural flights of fancy, there are no dragons and wizards; in my stories I take ordinary everyday people and turn their world upside down, I challenge everything they once held to be real and true until I can open their minds to other possibilities.
Take my main character, police detective Inspector Nick Burton, he is no super hero, he’s no James Bond that’s for sure, in fact in the beginning you may find him a little dull and even he wouldn’t argue with you. In the midst of what we call a mid life crisis Nick is quietly floating through life. Forty five years of age, recently divorced from a loveless and childless marriage he now has little left in life except his job and that saddens him.
Until one day arriving back at his police station after a wasted day trip to Wales he discovers his immediate supervisor, Chief Superintendent Davis has been arrested for murder. Nick can’t or won’t accept this information and along with everyone else is convinced his boss has been framed.
The situation doesn’t get any better when Davis supposedly confesses to the crime but is later found dead in his police cell. Now Nick is convinced that something rotten is going on and is Hell bent on clearing his friend’s name.
So, I ask you the same question I ask of Nick Burton; “How well do you know your best friend ?”
If you are a Murder Mystery Fan have I whet your appetite to find out more ?
How about another little bonus.... If you have an E Reader you can download all three Inner Space Books for just £0.99 pence each. Now that has to be a bargain, that’s cheaper than a decent cup of coffee ! That and when you consider Colin Dexter’s last Inspector Morse book will set you back £5.50...
I can’t tell you I’m as good a story teller as he is, that’s up to you to tell me, however I could ask is he nearly six times better than I am ?
Surely it’s worth a pound to find out and at the same time answer the question you asked right at the beginning; “Can a new writer come along with something new ?” Three stories, same main characters I think I can keep you entertained and guessing to the end of each story !
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