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It's been a few weeks since I posted. Three to be moderately exact. You may recall that I was bitching about time and making some decisions about how I intended to spend the time. If you don't you can check out the post.

Anyhoo, I do hope to get out another post on breaking the writing rules sometime next week. Today I just wanted to give a status update. How am I doing?

Well, I've stopped blogging temporarily. I've cut back on twitter and Facebook, though not abandoned them entirely like I did for a few months last year. I've stopped any kind of promotion on my audiobooks or ebooks. And - most painfully - I've been largely absent from interacting with my wonderful friends over at The Creative Alliance

The good news is, I have made good progress on my thriller novella. In three weeks, I've gotten 10,000 words done. Normally, I would like to get about double that if I am really focusing, but I knew when I posted three weeks ago that mid-May through mid-June would kick my ass. So I'm happy with it.

I would say I'm over halfway done now. I'll have to pick up the pace a bit to finish by the end of June as planned, but it is certainly possible. I'm still aiming for that milestone. And I'm liking the story. It's in a different voice than my other work, and it feels pretty natural. Especially the dialogue is just flowing freely. It's kind of nice working on something substantial enough to be more than a short story, but short enough that I can see the end during most of the process.

So that's where I am. Doubts, second thoughts, regrets, sure I've got 'em. But I'm accomplishing what I set out to do. And sometimes, that has to be enough.

Today is a very exciting day here in Edward G. Talbot land. Our first ever guest blogger! A couple weeks ago, I mentioned that I was really enjoying the Dark Journeys short stories from Jennifer Hudock. Well, I'm happy to announce that she has agreed to guest blog for us today and answer questions about herself and her work. below is a transcript of our question and answer session.

Before we get to that, let me tell you where to get her stories. They are available as ebooks for kindle or any other e-reader, or to read right on your computer. All but one are just 99 cents. You can find them on her Dark Journeys Page. The two I have read are Portrait of the Dead Countess and Call of the Selkie. Most of the stories fit somewhat into the horror genre, and are about places where what we normally think of as reality has broken down a bit.

And now the interview:

Q:Well first, tell everyone a little bit about Dark Journeys. What is the timeframe during which they were written? Do you have more "in the can" or are new ones primarily going to be things you haven't finished yet?

A:Dark Journeys is a collection of short stories that explore several genres, with one thing in common: they all have a dark and twisted undertone. Some of the stories are horror, some are dark fantasy, even a little science fiction thrown in there for good measure. Most of the stories were written between 2006 and 2010, but I haven't released them in any particular order. The last few are stories I am currently working on now. I plan to have 12 total, and once the 12th one is released, I'm going to compile them all into one collection with a special, 13th story and release it as an anthology in late July.

Q:What do you think it is about zombies and goblins that is so appealing? Obviously they're scary and people like being scared in a "controllable" way. But there are many ways to be scared and a handful of monsters like these have endured. Why?

A:The monsters continue to endure because I really believe they are a psychological representation of the things we fear most. The vampire is appealing because it's a taste of immortality, but at a cost most of us are unwilling to pay. Zombies fascinate us because society as a whole is constantly devouring itself, and as much as we hate to face it, it fascinates us. So much horror now is packed with gore and blood, extreme torturous death, and I wonder if studying the simpler monsters hasn't desensitized us just a little bit.

Q:They say every author of fiction has some sort of magnum opus just dying to come out. Something that can only come out if they let go of just about everything and just write, but that takes whatever it is that drives them to write to its extreme. For instance, Stephen King has always said The Dark Tower series is his (and fitting that it is 7 frigging volumes). Do you have one tucked away in that twisted creative mind of yours, or is that still an unknown?

A:I am actually working on a novel right now that started out as a short story, Between Moons, which I actually published in the Dark Journeys series. After I finished the story, I knew my relationship with the two main characters was just beginning, so I started working on Running Down the Moon. I'm about 1/2 way through the first draft of the novel, and the exploration of the characters is so deep. I feel that once I finish it, it will be an amazing work.

Q:Have you ever wanted try writing fiction in a completely different genre, or is that dark edge what drives everything?

A:I actually enjoy writing in a lot of different genres. I've written fantasy, romance, drama... what drives me is the characters and the stories they have to tell. Their psychological dilemmas and perspective.

Q:What writers do you like reading most yourself, and why? Give 3-5 of them. And tell us how they've influenced your own writing.

A:Jonathan Maberry is an amazing writer. Every once in awhile a unique voice emerges in fiction, and Maberry is one of those instances. Reading his work has impacted the way I write action scenes because he is the master of action as far as I'm concerned.

Neil Gaiman has been one of my biggest influences, ever since I was in my early teens. I started reading the Sandman comic series and fell in love with his voice and vision. Dream of the Endless was one of the most dramatic, Byronic heroes of my time, and when Gaiman started publishing fiction, I was thrilled. I think I even danced a little. One of the things I love most about Gaiman's writing is connection to literature. He is so well-read, it blows my mind, and I have always longed to be able to write with that kind of connection to history.

Stephen King was the very first adult fiction I read as a kid. My mother was a big King fan, and his books were all over the house. I picked up Salem's Lot when I was about 12, and started reading. It was the first time I was really terrified after reading something, but I couldn't stop. I went on to read Carrie and then Christine, after that IT... and I was hooked. I think he was what prompted my interest in writing horror.

Q:Now for the ultimate question that will really tell us what kind of writer you are - which do you prefer, dogs or cats? And no equivocating.

A: I prefer cats. They are low maintenance, they love you when they want to and when they purr it makes me like all is right with the world.

"The time has gone, the song is over. Thought I'd something more to say." - Pink Floyd

I originally had planned on blogging the next installment on breaking the rules in writing. But the past couple weeks have seen the chronic problem of time management rear its ugly head. I've gotten relatively little writing and promotion done, and that looks to continue for a while.

The fact is that if you want something badly enough, you find a way to do it. Almost everyone can find an extra 30 or 60 minutes, and you can get a hell of a lot done in an hour a day. A lot of writers can write a thousand words (or more) in an hour - that's 365,000 words a year in that extra hour. If it's important, you'll do it.

I don't want to spend the post complaining about my specific problems. Whatever I could say is keeping me from working much on writing/promotion, someone could point out examples of people who worked through much worse. I've thought a lot about the details and the options and I have come to a conclusion: writing is not important enough to me.

Now don't get me wrong, I love to write, and I have no intention of stopping. I'll have more novels, more short stories, more podcasts, and more promotions. This is not a post about giving up or stopping. But writing isn't the only thing I love to do. Nor is it the most important thing I do, either personally or generally. And the other things that are also important are preventing me putting in the time I need to keep my writing "moving forward" on the various necessary levels.

So that means I need to make some choices. A while back I wrote a post about writers not letting themselves off the hook. The gist was that it is critical not to let yourself say that because you can't do something perfectly or completely, you won't do it at all. In a lot of ways, what I've been struggling with over the past two weeks is how to remain true to that.

So I have come do a decision, one that I think will feel more definite if I put it in writing, in public. From now until the end of June, I am going to focus on completing a thriller novella that I am about 9000 words into. I may also do a few edits of a short story, and I may do a submission or two of existing work, but blogging, promotion, social networking and podcasting are all going to take a back seat. Those things are important, but at this point I need to generate some more content. Both for my own sanity and for the potential growth of my fan-base, this is what I must do.

I fully expect that sometime in the future, I will write a post saying something roughly the opposite of what I'm saying now: that I've written some things and now I need to buckle down and spread the word. Life is not static; things change. I have found that in order to continue making progress, I need to re-evaluate things on a regular basis. And that's what I've done in recent weeks.

If you've gotten through this post, I'd ask two things of you. First, tell me in the comments how/if you deal with situations where something simply has to give.

Second, wish me luck. This new thriller? It's gonna rock.

Hi folks, I'm trying something new for me, a video podcast episode. Today I drew the winners of the Mayday ebook contest and I recorded the event. It is in the podcast feed, or you can view it right here on the site

And the winners are. . .

• 1st Prize - Ben Langhinrichs. Ben wins a copy of our first print novel when it comes out, and a copy of our next ebook, most likely a thriller novella this summer.
• 2nd Prize - Jennifer Hudock. She wins a copy of our next ebook

Thanks to all who purchased the books and entered. We'll be having another contest when we launch our next book, and I hope you'll all join us again.<\p>

We'd also like to thank all the fellow authors and bloggers who helped promote the contest. We couldn't have done it without you. We gained some new readers and really got the word out, and for that I thank you. The following is a list of everyone I have down who blogged or otherwise helped promote it - I'm sure I have forgotten someone and I will feel bad about it, but please let me know if I did!

• James Melzer played the promo in his podcast.
• Jennifer Hudock blogged about it (and bought the books)
• Arlene Radasky mentioned it on her blogtalkradio show.
• Emerian Rich played the promo.
• Podioracket (Rhonda Carpenter and Heather Roulo mentioned it and played the.promo
• Zoe Winters blogged about it
• Greg Crites blogged about it
• Drew Beatty blogged about it
• Patrick Pillars blogged about it and reviewed it.
• Veronica Giguere blogged about it.

Fellow podcaster and writer Jennifer Hudock has released some short stories in recent months that you should check out. She is calling them "Dark Journeys", and she has just released the seventh ebook in the collection, all but one for 99 cents. I have read a couple of them and they are excellent. I have several more waiting on my growing collection of "to read".

You can find them on her Dark Journeys Page. The two I have read are Portrait of the Dead Countess and Call of the Selkie. Most of the stories fit somewhat into the horror genre, though Call of the Selkie really doesn't. Above all the stories are about places where what we normally think of as reality has broken down a bit.

Hudock tells a good story, but that's not the best thing about this collection. The best thing is the writing. She makes great use of language and images, but she doesn't go overboard. She uses great variety in her word choice, but it doesn't feel forced in any way. I would use the word elegant, but that implies flowery and literary in a way that I don't generally care for and isn't accurate here. There are a lot of ways to use words to create images in the reader's mind, but it's a rare author who can actually have the words themseleves resonate. Hudock accomplishes this.

So go check out these stories. If you like good writing, you won't be disappointed.

Today's the day, time to head on over to www.sethharwood.com and pre-order the limited edition of Harwood's Jack Palms prequel, Young Junius.

Originally release as a podcast, Young Junius tells the story of one of the Jack wakes Up characters, Junius Ponds, and his life growing up on the mean streets of Boston. Harwood has teamed with Tyrus Books to do a signed limited edition hardcover, and today at noon eastern time, it goes on sale. Harwood's characters are hard, but his writing style is smooth, and you don't want to miss his first hardcover release.

This post is the first in a series about writing rules and how authors can break them effectively

"Nothing is beautiful from every point of view" - Horace (translated from Latin)

Most authors of fiction are familiar with the term "point of view" as it relates to writing. In this post, I'll be using the abbreviation "POV" to mean point of view. POV essentially means the point of view that a story is told from. We are told not switch POV too often, and to firmly ground each section/chapter in a POV. This is good advice, but we've all read great books that violated this rule. So when can we get away with violating it and how can we best do so?

Before I start, I want to give a quick link to author L.J. Sellers' recent blog post about POV. I already had the notion to write this blog post, but reading her blog a couple days ago shook me out of my lethargy. That and the inspiration from my fellow authors over at The Creative Alliance.

First, let me quickly outline some of the rules you generally hear about POV. This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it universally accepted, but it will serve as a general summary:

• Don't use omniscient POV. Omniscient POV means that you are telling the reader things that none of the characters in the scene know. It's also been called a "God's-eye view". One example is spending a couple of pages describing past events that no one in the current time of the story knows about. Here's a link to a Wikipedia Article with more details.
• Don't tell anything that the POV character doesn't know. You can have other characters explain things of course, but if your POV character in a car chase scene doesn't know that the bad guys he's chasing have a rocket launcher, you can't have him worry about it until he actually sees it or learns of its existence. A corollary of this rule is don't kill off your POV character at the end of a scene.
• Don't switch POV in the middle of a scene. This is the biggest no-no. People also call it head-hopping. You're going along telling the story from the POV of Jack the male nurse and suddenly you add something about how Judie the undersexed hospital administrator feels flush when Jack sits down next to her. Usually, such shifts interrupt the flow of the story and lessen the connection between the reader and the character. This obviously violates the previous rule as well.
• Firmly ground each scene in a POV. You may have avoided the first three problems, but still have writing that could be made more compelling by addressing POV. It's easy enough to write a scene that doesn't include anything that the main character in the scene doesn't know. But often you will want to actually show that main character's reactions to what is going on, including inner dialogue. That is firmly grounding the POV, as the way the scene unfolds completely relies on the main character's interpretation of it. When done well, that can really suck the reader in.

So if you follow all these rules, will you have good writing? You might, but as I mentioned, all of these rules can be broken. The first rule is the most obvious one. In certain types of writing, it is very important to tell things from character POV, but in work with a lot of action or with a sweeping or legendary story, you can break out of it pretty easily. One situation is when you are setting the scene for action, where you lay the groundwork with things the characters may not know, so the readers can more easily picture it. A purist would say that there are alternative ways to do the same thing; there may be, but often the omniscient POV is in fact the best way (IMNSHO-YMMV).

You can also use the omniscient POV when giving history. You have to be very careful with this, and usually it should be at the beginning of a whole section of your story so it doesn't interrupt the flow. Frederick Forsyth does this very well in a number of his thrillers. In "The Afghan," he spends several pages on the history of Afghanistan, and it is so well-written that you can't put it down, even though most of it doesn't directly relate to the story.

Another great example of the omniscient POV is in Scott Sigler's horror thriller "Infected." He sprinkles a page or two here and there with stuff that only the omniscient POV knows, and it blends perfectly with the story. In Chapter Three, he shows us some sort of seeds traveling through space, and it helps set the suspense for just what those seeds will do when they get to earth.

With switching POV and telling things the POV character doesn't know, there is no hard-and-fast explanation of when you can violate the rules. I recently read "Shogun" by James Clavell, and sometimes he switches POV multiple times within the same page. Sometimes I think he would have been better off doing it differently, but other times it works very well. A lot of scenes contain characters from very different cultures, but it is critical that they not show their reactions to certain things. Yet it is very effective for the reader to know how those characters are feeling, right when something occurs. Clavell could have done something like show the POV character's thoughts, knowing how the others probably were reacting. In my opinion that would have worked less well than the way he did it in most cases.

The key question you have to ask yourself when considering breaking this rule is how it impacts the flow and the reader's connection to characters. You don't want to do it in a scene that is primarily focused on one character's reactions - switching would be too jarring. As I mentioned, there's no easy answers, just the need to ask the hard questions about whether violating the rule really improves the story.

With the rule about firmly grounding the scene, you have the most flexibility. This is a rule that I have come to appreciate more over the years. Scenes are often better when the reader identifies with one character for the whole scene. The problem that I see - especially in the thriller genre that I read a lot of - is overdoing it. It's easy for an author to spend too much time in the character's head and not enough in the story. That's not strictly a POV problem, but attempting to highlight a character's POV all the time can result in it.

The key thing here is to ask yourself what the "story" is for any given scene. The more a scene needs to be about what happens as opposed to a character's reactions, the less you want to anchor yourself in point of view. This is one that's hard to give examples of, because it's a range, not an either/or. Most writers of fiction today err on the side of too much, in my opinion. Readers obviously are buying it, so I'm not about to tell them to stop! Tom Clancy is one writer I can think of who used to do a good job balancing when to go deep into point of view and when not to. At least, in some of his books.

That concludes my initial thoughts on the subject. Above all, if you intend to break the rules, do it consciously. Look at the scene and the characters and decide that it works better without following them. Most of the time, you'll find you need to follow the rules, but if you choose the right places to break them, that can sometimes be the extra spark a story needs to become really good. So let me know what you think: as a writer or a reader, how do you feel about POV?

Listen:
Download:

Another book review today. Read it here on the site, or listen to the audio with the player above. If you haven't subscribed yet, click the Podcast Episodes button to the right. This review was also posted recently on the Megalith: Books that Rock thriller blog. Check Megalith out for all kinds of great thriller reviews in addition to mine.

Also this week:

• We announce our MAYDAY celebration, with the official launch of two ebooks of short stories on May 1, 2010. Please check out the Mayday Celebration Page for more information
• A promo for Scott Roche and his new ebooks
• A promo for Jennifer Hudock's Dark Journeys collection

And now, the review.

The List, by J.A. Konrath

Author web Site: www.jakonrath.com
Buy the book at Kindle Store

"I found the head"

That's how J.A. Konrath's novel "The List" begins, and it certainly makes you want to read further. Soon you meet Tom Mankowski, a Chicago homicide cop and the main protagonist. Tom finds a body to go with the head, and the gruesome nature of the murder turns his stomach. That's not the most surprising thing about the corpse, though. The left heel of the victim contains a small blue tattoo of the number seven. The real kicker is that Tom has seen such a tattoo before. He has had a blue number five tattooed on his own heel all his life.

I really enjoyed this book. "The List is available only as an e-book at this point, and is one of the top sellers on kindle. Konrath has achieved some success in traditional publishing with his Jack Daniels thrillers, but last fall he decided to put up a few of his early novels on Kindle for $1.99. He has kept his regular blog readers posted on his sales, and the numbers have been tremendous. He is probably the most successful example of an author self-publishing fiction on Kindle. There is a reason for that: his books are good.

"The List" is in some ways a pretty typical thriller, with intrigue, violence, and a puzzle to solve. As you might guess, there are others who have blue numbers on their feet. It all goes back to a government project undertaken many years ago, but recent circumstances are triggering the cleaning up of loose ends. The victim - and Tom himself - are loose ends.

Help with short stories that is. This Mayday, May 1, 2010, Edward G. Talbot is formally launching two ebook collections of short stories, for 99 cents each. A Funny Pair of Shorts contains three humorous shorts, and A Horrifying Pair Of Shorts contains three horror stories, including two never before published in any format.

Read A Sample You want to check it out first, right? at either Smashwords or the Kindle store, you can sample the beginning of the first story, but here on the site, you can actually sample the beginning of each story in a pdf:

• Sample the Funny Shorts
• Sample the Horror Shorts

Mayday Contest: If you purchase one of the books anytime between now and May 1st, Email me and you'll be entered into a drawing for free future work from Edward G. Talbot. If you purchase both books, you'll get two entries. The drawing will occur sometime in the first week of May, and two prizes will be awarded:

• First Prize: A free copy of our first print novel (more on that this summer) and a free copy of our next ebook, which will be a thriller novella
• Second Prize:A free copy of our next ebook, which will be a thriller novella

Links to Amazon and Smashwords are available here, in any ebook reader format:
A Funny Pair of Shorts
A Horrifying Pair Of Shorts

Don't have an ebook reader? No problem, at Smashwords you can get the book in any format you want, including a pdf to download to your PC. You can even read it right online.

Fellow Podcasters: Snag the one minute audio promo for these books and help spread the word. Or share the Funny Sample or the Horror Sample. If you blog about it or play the promo in your podcast between now and the end of the day May 1st, Email me and I will give you a code to get your choice of one of the ebooks for free.

As May 1 draws closer, check back for more.

"This is the end. My only friend, the end. Of our elaborate plans, the end"
- from "The End" by The Doors, 1967

In my humble opinion, that song is one of the truly great rock songs. The mixture of pleasure and pain it describes applies to more than just lost love and killers and death. Sometimes when we writers are working on a story, finishing the story can be bittersweet, or even just plain bitter. And sometimes we get near the end and we have no idea how to finish it, especially with a short story. In this post, I've outlined four possible ways to effectively end a short story.

There are more ways to end a story other than these four of course. And there is often overlap between the different ways. But if you are stuck, a look at these may help unstick you. Even if you aren't stuck, they may give you some ideas. Anyway, here they are:

The Twist Ending

Add something a bit unexpected right near the end. If you have listened to or read Edward G. Talbot, you'll know that we like to end stories this way. It works for many genres. The one thing you have to be careful about is not making it too unexpected so the reader feels like you just threw it in there. The reader needs to feel that it's consistent with everything else in the story

There are so many ways to implement this concept. You see it all the time in suspense movies. Jeffrey Deaver is a master of this with his thrillers. A really good example is in James Patterson's second Alex Cross thriller, Kiss The Girls. The killer turns out to be the FBI agent who was working the case. It's just possible enough that the reader buys it and feels a chill at the betrayal.

The twist can also be subtle. My friend and fellow podcaster Scott Roche recently released an e-book short story called Bitter Release about a soldier trapped in a cave with only memories and a case of absinthe. Roche gives us a subtle twist literally in the last line that ties the surreal feel of the story together very effectively. I can't say more without spoiling the story.

The Resolving Action

In action, mystery, thriller, and suspense genres, this is probably the most common ending. The line between a resolving action and a twist ending can be blurry, but a resolving action to my mind tends to be more expected, more like a traditional climax. This can be a major action like a bombing or a killing, or it can be something simple that punctuates the story.

A good example is in Tom Clancy's "Debt of Honor", where a plane crashes into a joint session of Congress, making Jack Ryan the President. That's one serious resolving action. Or in our own audiobook New World Orders we resolve the chase that has at one level been going on for the entire book. I won't give the details, but it definitely ends with a Resolving Action.

On the other hand, you could have a story where a woman has killed an abusive husband and is struggling with guilt and the story could end with some symbolic gesture regarding letting go of it. That is a bit of a cliche, but it wouldn't seem like it if done right. You get the idea.

The "Story" ends itself

This is very common in literary stories. Ask yourself, "What is the story I am telling the reader?" Stephen King in his book on writing talks about knowing what the story is as the key to all good writing. What is it on a high level that is interesting enough to make people keep reading? The story itself may have a built-in ending.

Seth Harwood uses this technique to perfection in his short story collection A Long Way From Disney. In story after story he has characters or feelings or some tension (or all three) to tell you about, and they end when he has finished telling you that particular story.

Another example is the movie Titanic. There are basically two stories, one how all the characters react to the sinking/tragedy and the other is how that tragedy impacts Jack and Rose, who have fallen in love. The movie ends with Rose casting the necklace away (a resolving action), but it could have simply ended with Rose finishing her tale and the viewers really understanding how that brief time impacted the whole rest of her life.

So once you understand what the story is you are telling, the ending may simply present itself. In some ways it can be easier in a short story because there are usually not very many threads in the story. The flash story that Jason wrote for our Intercast podcast - "Alive" - ends with the main character jumping out of a building. That is no surprise to readers, as the whole story builds to it. You could call it a resolving action, but in this case it's more of a simple completion of the only place the story could have gone. James Melzer's ebook story PTS does something similar. Nothing in that story is a surprise, and it ends with action, but again, it's the only place the story could have gone.

The Intentionally Ambiguous ending

I like this one, but in my opinion it is the hardest to pull off. The problem is that most of the time the reader wants resolution. In a longer work, it's possible to leave questions unanswered for a sequel, but that's not the same thing - that's not really the ending. It generally only works when the "story" is the tension or some interpaly between characters, and the resolution doesn't matter.

I tried it in my short story "Transition" in the Intercast Audiobook, where the tension between outgoing and incoming U.S. administrations and several different middle eastern governments led to a climax where one group in the U.S. government was about to launch a nuclear strike and another was trying to stop them. The story is about how close we could get to nuclear holocaust with only one or two overt acts leading to it - whether nuclear holocaust actually occurs or not is irrelevant to the story. I actually got a couple of extremely positive comments about how I did this, but I also got one negative for not telling people exactly what happened. This kind of ending will not please everyone, but I do think it can be done effectively.

There are many other ways to end a story, or variations on the above techniques. Tell me about some of your favorites in the comments.