I'm pleased today to have a guest poster, Lee Thompson, a good friend and terrific writer, who has a new book out he'd like to talk about. Lee and I met a few years ago at a Bouchercon and have become great friends. He's a terrific writer and I'm delighted to help give him and his work a bit of additional exposure. He also provides some great tips for writers here. Without further ado, here's Lee...
From Lee Thompson's desk...
A Texas Senator and
his wife go missing… On the same day, their son is slaughtered by an enigmatic
killer on the lawn of ex-Governor Edward Wood's residence. Sammy, Wood's drug
dealing son, suspects his father of the crime. After all, his old man snapped
once before and crippled his wife with a lead pipe. But there's something more
to these events…something deeper and festering just beneath the surface…
In direct opposition
to Homicide Detective Jim Thompson, Sammy begins an investigation of his own,
searching for the truth in a labyrinth of lies, deception, depravity and
violence that drags him deeper into darkness and mayhem with each step. And in
doing so, brings them all into the sights of an elusive and horrifying killer
who may not be what he seems.
A brutal killer on a
rampage of carnage…a hardened detective on the brink…an antihero from the
shadows…a terrifying mystery that could destroy them all…
Welcome to Lee Thompson’s A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS blog tour!
This blog, and the others participating, will receive a paperback copy to give
to a random reader who leaves a comment and shares this post.
Throughout the book tour, I’ll be sharing fun facts about my
first Mystery/Thriller, and also offering dubious advice to novice writers
because I’ve had writers and editors farther along the path than myself give me
tips that have helped me tremendously. If you want to up your game, pay
attention and pass what you find useful on to those in your critique groups.
If you’re here as a reader, thanks so much. You’re every
author’s life source. You’re the yin to our yang. The stories we set down on
paper don’t seem to exist until someone else has read them, and the more the
merrier.
First/Easy Ideas (Are
they worth writing?)
A writer (let’s call him Charles) gets an idea and
immediately starts writing his story. The excitement of that idea might help
him finish it, and then later, looking back a month or year from now, Charles
will probably find that certain elements of his story still interest him (that
quick bit of snappy dialogue, or a certain description) but with more
experience and distance he’ll probably also find what had seemed amazing during
the creative portion now reads and feels only ho-hum.
I think lots of easy ideas are a waste of time. Many a
manuscript isn’t sellable because the first idea that strikes Charles’ fancy
has occurred to ten thousand other writers, and the same idea will find ten
thousand other writers next year. Editors want fresh ideas, ideas only you
could write. Yet it’s understandable why Charles loves ideas like this. They’re
easy to write. But they’re also incredibly predictable.
If you want to write something more original you have to
resist the easy ideas that are more than likely someone else’s vision, and find
your own. As a reader, picking up a book where Charles copies a Lee Child, or
Stephen King, or Dean Koontz idea,
the copy comes off terribly tepid. And it’s sad in a way, because in Charles’
deluded mind—I’m speaking from experience, I’m very deluded—he will believe
that his creation is nearly as good
as Child or King or Koontz.
I believe experience is the best teacher, and we can get
better at judging the value of our ideas nearly instantaneously, which is kind
of cool.
Want to read some Crime novels with interesting and fresh
ideas? Check out THE RAPIST by Les Edgerton, and FEAST DAY OF FOOLS by James
Lee Burke, they’re two of my favorites.
In A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS I wanted to avoid a lot of the Crime
tropes I’ve read in a lot of other novels. Luckily my heroes paved the way by
writing their own stories instead of taking the easy, boring, predictable
route. In their novels, and in my own, the story is about more than just one
main character, which is nice because it adds depth to the story and brings out
sides of every character that might have otherwise been unattainable.
Buy on Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Madness-Lee-Thompson-ebook/dp/B00K36ITGS/
Buy the Paperback:
http://www.amazon.com/A-Beautiful-Madness-Lee-Thompson/dp/1940544297/
Author bio: Lee
Thompson is the author of the Suspense novels A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS (August
2014), IT’S ONLY DEATH (January 2015), and WITH FURY IN HAND (May 2015). The
dominating threads weaved throughout his work are love, loss, and learning how
to live again. A firm believer in the enduring power of the human spirit, Lee
believes that stories, no matter their format, set us on the path of
transformation. He is represented by the extraordinary Chip MacGregor of
MacGregor Literary. Visit Lee’s website to discover more:
www.leethompsonfiction.com
A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS main page (http://www.leethompsonfiction.com/?page_id=2423)
Enter to win a
paperback copy! There will also be a grand prize at the end of the tour where
one winner will receive my novel, and four other DarkFuse novels in Kindle
format!
Simply leave a
comment on this blog and share the link.
Thanks to those who participate.
Happy reading~ Lee
Thanks, Lee! Glom onto a copy, folks--you'll become a fan!
Blue skies,
Les
Posts
10 comments:
So easy to fall in love with an idea; so hard to make others fall in love with the same idea. True enough that 10,000 maniacs (writers) are writing the same book I am. Only I WILL make it unique by adding a... sorry I can't tell you.
Writers need to push things to the edge, and then fall off it. Thanks for the reminder.
Whoops, I posted and deleted my comment twice. Brain is frazzled.
Thanks so much for the comment, Rick! You're in the running for a paperback copy of A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS, and the grand prize.
You can tell you're a writer, teasing like that about your book. Lol. Thanks again for participating and best of luck with your work! - Lee
Well, the biggest thing is to stop and question your ideas, ask how and--more importantly--why they might make good stories. Because that's what readers want, not ideas. Those are like assholes, as the saying goes.
It's that act of questioning that starts pulling the story out of you, makes the characters live and breathe in ways that readers will care what happens to them and--again, more importantly--why.
An idea might have some of the important elements: who, what, where, when, even how, but they seldom include that all important why. You actually have to ask yourself why you should give a shit, and if you don't have an answer, you don't have a story.
If we didn't discover that Norman Bates had a psychotic hard-on for his dead domineering mother who had warped his mind beyond repair, him killing a bunch of folks in a motel he runs becomes pretty boring and downgrades the story to a b-movie at best. It's the pathology driving his murderous instincts that makes him, and therefore the story, interesting. By the end, you almost feel sorry for the guy.
Maybe that entire plot and character arc and backstory sprang fully formed from Bloch's mind one morning while he was pouring himself a cup of coffee, but I doubt it. I'm guessing it took some thought--not all of it conscious--to weave it into cloth from threads.
So yeah, stories are much more than ideas, the way wildfires are much more than a spark or two. You got a spark, you can blow on it all you want, but if you don't give it some fuel, it flickers and dies. Those bits of dialog and moments of lyricism and whatnot you mentioned, Lee, they're nothing more than the little flare of bright burning on the palm of your hand as the spark spent itself.
Or maybe I'm full of shit.
Thanks for the comment, Shaun! I'm with you on the 'why' of it all. Great comparison using Norman Bates.Thanks for entering the giveaway for a paperback copy and good luck for a chance winning the grand prize, man.
That was my first mistake. When I self published. Now I read it more than once and make a lot of adjustments
Thanks for the comment, Donald. I hear you on having to get past that. It's so easy to think everything we've written is brilliant. Lol. You're in the running for a chance at a paperback copy of ABM, plus the grand prize.
ABM Blog Tour/Giveaway Winners: http://www.leethompsonfiction.com/?p=2625
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