Now what does all this have to do with bringing characters to life and making them feel more real?  Simple.  To me, a person’s life is the sum total of their experiences both good and bad.  How we react, what choices we make, all of these things shape who we are and who we may yet become.  So if a life is shaped by experiences and how they made you feel, how can your characters be any less human than you or me?  But a character is a made up person with no real past or experiences, EXCEPT for the ones we as writers give them.  In my case, I give some of my own personal life experiences to my various characters.  For instance I’ve given the skill of Ballroom Dance to two of my characters.  I gave them different levels of experience, one was a beginner the other was extremely advanced and taught others.  Now, in no way am I an expert in Ballroom, BUT I knew people who were and was able to get some insights from them.  I transferred SOME of these insights and experiences to the characters.  You’ll note I said SOME of these insights and experiences.  Because unless the main story revolves around Ballroom, why should I bore the reader with pages and pages about that kind of dance?  I give the audience snippets of those insights and the joy and feeling of dance.  Enough let them get more information about this character and what makes them happy and why.

But there are other life experiences I’ve  drawn upon as well.  But I’ve also given my characters experiences from the sad times in my life such as  losing someone close to me.  The pain, the feeling of being lost and confused by the experience of someone no longer being a part of your life.  People can relate to all of this and can feel sorry for or commiserate with the character in these situations.  It makes the reader feel more like the person they’re reading about is more human, like someone they know.

Hobbies or jobs are another way of making your creations seem more like real people.  Their pet peeves at the job.  Annoying co-workers, friends, what they do off the job together.  All of these help make a character seem more like a real person.  Draw from your own life, give bits of your feelings or experiences to your people to make them more than 2-dimensional caricatures from a comic strip.  Remember, your characters are your children, shape them give them life and the audience will appreciate and love them as you do.

These are not the 1st edition copies, these are the re-edited 2nd edition copies. Each one is $10.00 a piece, plus $3.00 shipping/handling in the United States. Anyone interested in getting one of these please let me know down in the comments section or e-mail me. Payments accepted through Paypal.

Everyone is pretty familiar with the works of Anne Rice, Stephanie Meyer, and of course Bram Stoker.  But what about other authors who’ve tapped into this vein (I know this pun sucks… but so do vampires ba-da-bum).  This collection can be a huge help to any author with plans on attacking this famous mythos by giving them a chance to see what others have done before them.  I know I found it helpful and enlightening.

THE PENGUIN BOOK OF VAMPIRE STORIES is one of the best anthologies I’ve ever found.  Part of the reason is that it covers authors who’ve touched on this subject as far back as 1816 and goes up to 1984.  There are a number of familiar names in this book like Clark Ashton Smith, Sheridan Le Fanu, Tanith Lee, and August Derleth to name just a few.  But what fascinates me the most is seeing how the vampire legend is explored.  We meet the legendary “Varney The Vampire”, the seductive and dangerous “Carmilla”, as well as  Stoker’s missing chapter from Dracula which was released as a short story several years after the novel itself was published.  I understand in some later printings, it was put back into the novel where it belonged.  Alas my copy of Dracula is one of the ones without it, so finding this missing chapter in this collection was a treat for me.

The first 2 installments in this collection: “Fragment of a Novel”  (1816) and “The Vampyre” (1819) were of particular interest to me since their creation were the direct result of a bet made between the poet Percy Shelley, his wife Mary, Lord Byron and John Polidori.  The four were spending a summer together and during a particularly boring rainy night they all agreed to a little contest.  Each was to create a full length horror story within a certain amount of time.  These 2 stories were the entries by Byron and Polidori respectively.  Neither is fully finished.  In fact Mary Shelley was the only one to complete her story the legendary “Frankenstein”.

Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla” is another brilliant piece in this collection.  Published in 1872, it predates Stoker’s more famous “Dracula” by a few decades.  Considered a ‘lesbian’ vampire story since both the victims and the antagonist are women.  But it’s here where we really find one of the first demonstrations of  the sensuous behavior that has been built upon by so many modern writers of vampire fiction.  Yet, it is not love or real affection.  I’ll quote a passage from the story so you can see what I mean.

“…the vampire is prone to be fascinated with an engrossing vehemence, resembling passion

of love, by particular persons.  In pursuit of these it will exercise inexhaustible patience and

stratagem, for access to a particular object may be obstructed in a hundred ways.  It will

never desist until it has satiated its passion, and drained the very life of its coveted victim.

But it will, in these cases, husband and protract its murderous enjoyment with the refinement

of an epicure, and heighten it by the gradual approaches of an artful courtship.  In these cases

it seems to yearn for something like sympathy and consent.  In ordinary ones it goes direct to

its object, overpowers with violence, and strangles and exhausts often at a single feast…”

So here we see that alluring nature that is so eroticized these days.  But clearly in this passage we see that clearly there is no real affection for the victim at all.  It’s fascinating to see how one idea is singled out and made romantic, while the consequences are ignored these days.  However, I cannot criticize modern writers for this.  Every author wants to put a different spin on an old legend and this can be seen throughout this collection.

We have “Luella Miller” by Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman in 1902.  No blood letting here, but the title character definitely has a kind of vampiric nature, willing or otherwise.  She is almost a sympathetic character in some ways.

Later we find C. L. Moore’s “Shambleau” in 1933, where the author takes us on a science fiction journey to another planet where we meet a vampire-like being, who also shares some resemblance to the legendary Medusa of ancient Greece.

There’s also the legendary Fritz Lieber’s offering “The Girl With The Hungry Eyes” from 1949.  Or August Derleth’s 1939 “Drifting Snow” where we meet a pair of Snow Vampires.

For almost a century authors have been putting their own spin on this famous myth and many will continue for years to come, myself included.

I give this collection a full 5 STAR rating and highly recommend it to any fan of this genre.

This fourteenth outing for the Joe Grey Mystery Series was both fun and intriguing for me. While I haven’t read the full series yet, I did read the earliest books and was quickly drawn into this wonderful world where some cats can speak and think on par with humans, while others cannot.

Miss Murphy keeps each story building on this mystery either slightly or heavily. In this case it was more heavily focused on while at the same time dealing with a classic whodunnit.  What is the connection between a body, dead 10 years, up in Oregon to the mysterious disappearance of a local man who was going on a hike locally? And when a second body, also dead some 10 years is discovered in an unmarked grave, the big questions arises to this person’s identity. Could this one be the missing local man? If not, then who is it?  And why were they buried with a book that frightens the cats, because it contains hints about them?

These are just a few of the questions that arise in this book.  We also get to see a bit more of the lives of some of these intelligent/talking cats.  Not all wish to live among humans.  Many are feral and distrustful of humans.  Yet they understand that there are some they can reach out to for help in a major crisis.  The scenes where the ferals reach out to those they believe they can trust can be quite touching and moving.  We see their point of view of their world, as well as the humans viewpoint.  We may not entirely agree with either side but the author gives us food for thought.  She makes us take a look at some of the relationships we’ve had over time with people in our own lives who had very different ideas about themselves and the world.

Another nice touch to these books is that they do not focus solely on the cats themselves but the people in their lives. It is an ensemble piece that keeps growing and evolving, along with the characters themselves. We are slowly introduced to more and more of the many residents of Molena Point (which is modeled upon Carmel California where the author resides).

This is an excellent series that keeps you coming back for more. You’ll find yourself cheering for the cats and their people, as well as a number of the secondary characters who keep the series growing. One of the more feel-good mystery series you want to curl up with on a quiet day and maybe make you wonder about any four-footed friends in your life.

Now before I proceed, remember I’m only speaking for myself and what I’m experiencing in this process.  I’m still very much on the learning curve and I would love to hear some of your experiences down in the comments section below.  You may very well wind up giving insight to other issues I haven’t thought about yet, which could be very helpful.

Anyway, as I said before the process is taking longer than I’d hoped.  I originally figured I’d be laying down the plot for book four by now, while having book three 2/3′s of the way done.  So what’s been happening?  Why am I working so slowly?  I think it’s several things.

First, folks who’ve read “The Bridge” really loved it even with the imperfect editing job I’d done on my own since I couldn’t afford a professional editor.   Yet the readers were willing to overlook any issues on that front because they were swept up on the story.  Plus they fell in love with the characters and how they interacted (especially with Alex and Veronica).  So, there are high expectations for “The Ship”.  However, I’ve shifted the focus to the second lead couple Julie and Cassandra, and relegated Alex and Veronica to a few brief chapters in the new book.  But what happens to them is still connected to the new story and has major implications for book #3.

So with the shift in attention to Julie and Cassie I’m dealing with a whole new situation.  They have a much different relationship and chemistry.  Alex and Veronica already had long term relationship when we met them.  But Cassie and Julie are just beginning a romantic relationship.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with their story, Julie and Cassie are lesbians.  So right there the dynamics of their interactions are going to be a bit different, and not just because they are both women.  I’m approaching their situation like I would any two people who have just become a couple, but I’m also keeping in mind the added pressure and worries of being gay.  They know there will be those who disapprove of their being together, including some members of their own families.  And I’m trying to make their developing relationship both tender and realistic, rather than a male fantasy where they are just eager to jump into bed with each other.  I want to the audience to see them as real people, not just stereotypes or caricatures.

But I also have to keep the reader engaged by getting them to care about these two young ladies.  So I have to juggle events and scenes in such a way to keep the audience laughing, intrigued and rooting for them while slowly building threat of the approaching danger and mystery that Julie and Cassie are about to become enmeshed in.

Now another issue is the pacing of the story.  People loved how I did it in the first book.  It wasn’t too fast, nor too slow.  And I kept breaking off scenes in such a way as to make the reader eager to turn the page so they could start on the next chapter.   Not as easy as it sounds, at least for me.  But I believe I’m succeeding in keeping this up with the new book.

Another problem is too many details or unnecessary scenes.  This is something I encountered with the first book.  But in that case I didn’t realize how much of a problem it was until after I finished the first draft and then re-read everything.  This time I keep catching the problem as I’m still working on the first draft, which means I go back edit and rewrite as I’m going along.  Or, I’ll find a scene I wrote earlier works better in a section I’m currently working on, so I have to pull it out and move it.  Then I have to go back to where I had it and fix any issues the change made to that area.

Plus there are other issues as well, which I may cover in another entry.  But this gives you a good insight to what’s going on for me as the author.  Again I’d love to hear from some of you about what you’ve encountered with your writing.  I am using a ‘mental’ outline in my head.  I tried writing one out but kept changing it over and over as I went along that it looked more like a bad set of directions that could get the most experienced cartographer to throw up his/her hands in surrender.  Everyone has their own style.  Plus, my characters have a tendency to change the plan as I go along by coming up with alternative ideas that were better than the ones I’d had in mind.

So again I’m making progress, just a bit slower than I’d planned.  How is/was the writing process for you on your 2nd, 3rd or even 7th book?  I’m sure both me and the other readers would love to hear about it.  Please tell us about your experiences in the comments below.  Thanks to tuning in and I’m looking forward to hearing what you all have to say.  Take care and thanks for reading.

Now I’m not just talking about Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”.  That was not the first vampire story.  There were many others. If you ever get the opportunity check out “The Penguin Book Of Vampire Stories” and you’ll see ones that predate Mr. Stoker’s work by quite a few years.  But in that collection you’ll also meet other kinds of vampires: snow vampires, ones who hide inside portratis, aliens on different planets, etc.  In this collection there are creatures of all sorts and shapes that are still called vampires.

This brings me to today’s subject.  How can you breathe new life into a genre that has been written about so many times over?  Well that’s up to the writer.  As in the case of Anne Rice, Stephenie Meyer and others, they tweek the original vampire concept to suit their story ideas.  Sometimes they provide and explanation about why their creations don’t adhere to all the old legends, sometimes not.

So, you may be thinking, “Okay Allan, how are you going to ‘tweek’ the vampire concept and make it fresh and different?  What changes are you going to make to the traditional weaknesses and rules?”

Here’s my answer.  All the traditional rules of garlic, being welcomed into a place, avoid sunlight, shape-shift, control minions, etc. will be in effect.  So where am I making the change?  Simple, my vampire is NOT undead.

At this point I’m sure a number of you are thinking if he’s not undead then he can’t be supernatural.  So how can all those limitations and vulnerabilities still apply to him?  That’s where the creative writing process comes in.  All of these things will be addressed in the story.  And it won’t just be about a biography about my vampire.  There will be dangers.  The internet allows people access to a lot of information.  And this story will be taking place in modern day.  So there will be suspicious townspeople, cops on the hunt, the threat of discovery, a ghost, and villains (human and otherwise) to be battled.

So there you have it.  A new take on a much used subject.  But instead of changing all the rules, I’m working with them and making new reasons for why they apply.  And in doing so, I’m hoping that a number of you are already really intrigued and are looking forward to checking the story out when it’s ready.  If this is the case, then I’ve succeeded in breathing new life and interest into a genre that has been worked and reworked many times over.  And it can be done with so many other genres such as fantasy, science fiction, thrillers, you name it.

So what genre or legendary creature/being have you thought about working on?  Is there one close to your heart that’s been done a lot already?  If so, how can you make it new and interesting?  Are there rules for how it behaves or can be dealt with and what are the explanations behind it?  Is there a new way to approach these things?  Give us a new spin on it that still makes sense and intrigues us.

I’d love to hear from you and so would other people who read this blog.  Leave comments below and tell us a little about what you are working on or have in mind.  Be careful not to give your whole idea away.  Just leave tantalizing hints that will get us revved up to check your work out as soon as it’s ready.

Until next time,  keep writing.

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Yesterday, against my better judgement, I started writing a second book.  Mind you  I’m still working on “The Ship” which is the sequel to my first novel “The Bridge”.  But I was having troubles with “The Ship”.  I was making progress, but it was so slow I was going crazy at times.  I would write over a 1000 words in one day and then dump about half of them because they weren’t moving the plot along or really helping develop the characters as much.  I kept what did seem to be working and built on that the next day.  Sometimes this is one way of dealing with Writer’s Block for me.

Then yesterday, something else happened.  An idea for a different book that is part of my Para-Earth series started gelling like no one’s business.  It had sat on the back-burner for so long now it was boiling over.  Scenes and characters started coming to life to such an extent I had only one of three options:

A) Start writing the book

B) Leave it alone and hope I don’t forget all this great stuff that was coming up

C) Start taking notes and outlining the damn thing for later.

I tried opting for C but next thing I knew I had written the opening scene of the book and was plunging forward with the project.  Tentatively I’m calling it “The Vampire Blogs”.  And as a homage to Bram Stoker who gave us “Dracula” I’m doing it as a series of journal and blog entries.  I’m choosing this route because I knew I wanted to do the entire book in the 1st person perspective.  Now most 1st person narratives stick with just one character throughout the entire story. This is a great device for a mystery or thriller because the audience can only know as much as the main character.  So when he/she gets surprised by something they didn’t know, so are we.

However, I knew from the start I’d need to be showing the audience what was going on in several different people’s heads while using the 1st person voice.  So how was I going to pull that off without confusing the hell out of my readers?  I turned to my “Spare Brain”, my wife Helen who is more well read than me, and asked for advice.  She told me that from what she could recall it had been done before but that it could be tricky.  Then she struck on the idea of paying homage to Mr. Stoker and instead of just letters and journals, use blogs and journals on the internet since I was using a modern day setting.  This was a masterstroke on her part.  I now had a clear path of how to switch heads and keep the “I” voice without confusing the audience.  The other thing I loved was the fact that I could build more suspense by letting the audience know things that only some of the characters were aware of.  Nothing gets an audience going like seeing some of what’s coming and realizing the characters don’t have a clue about it yet.  Plus you can still surprise your audience at times because they don’t necessarily know everything about the characters or the situation.  They know only what your characters have shared with them so far.

For instance… where does your story take place?  In Heaven?  Hell?  Another planet? This world?  If it is this world, what time frame?  Middle Ages? The future?  World War I or II?  Another time entirely?  And how does that setting affect the rest of your story?  Does the environment your characters are living in shape their personalities or how they get by in life?  Are they isolated with few friends because of the terrain or location?   Are they considered the outsider by the rest of the population who has been brainwashed to fit in and act a certain way by a higher authority?  In Frank Herbert’s “DUNE”, the setting of Arakis had a major role in shaping the main character Paul and his mother.  From leaving a world of splendor with water and lush vegetation to going to a barren desert planet, where water was more valuable than money or any riches.  The dangerous and harsh world re-shapes Paul from pampered youth to hard-bitten leader of the desert tribes of Arakis.  He learns hard and fast how to survive the threats of the planet itself, along with the political backstabbing that led to his father’s murder.  Setting can create a great tension that helps drive your story.

A setting can also be the major plot of a story as well.  In Ray Bradbury’s short sci-fi story “HERE THERE BY TYGERS” a planet itself is the main plot point.  A survey team for a mining company arrive on a planet that is sentient.  It offers them anything they could ever wish for: food, lush vegetation, water, even companionship.  It is a living paradise with the most gigantic and caring hostess you could ever meet.  Unfortunately, through the actions of one of their team, they learn the price of disrespect.  He is killed after purposely trying to hurt the planet by drilling samples in a savage manner.  He hates all planets and feels they must be beaten down and tamed.  In the end, the rest of the crew decide to return home, all save one member who has fallen in love with the planet. The others learn of his departure AFTER they have left and envy him.  They know the planet will take care of him and even maybe extend his life in a lush world that aims to please him.  But they can never return.  Even as they look back on the world it now ‘appears’ as a violent raging world of molten lava and volcanic eruptions.  They realize that the world was in a way a woman who had offered them everything.  But they had scorned her and now she is furious and will not let them return to her surface.   A truly brilliant piece.

So what kind of setting are you aiming for?  An inner-city ghetto?  A desert where an army is trying to deal with survival in more than one respect?  Or are you creating a  quiet suburban town where ‘nothing seems to happen’.  In each case your characters must interact with their surroundings.  That setting should shape your character’s personality and development before and during the story.  In that quiet suburban town where your lead is bored, what secrets lie beneath the ground or behind those seeming bland windows of the cookie-cutter housing that lines the streets.

Settings are powerful tools and not just backdrops.   Keep this in mind as you write, because you never know.  The setting you create may be one that you’ll want to return to again because there are more tales to be told from there.

Remember: Smashwords offers this book in the following e-reader formats: Apple, Sony, Nook, Kindle, Kobo, EPUB, PDF (for regular laptops and desktop computers), and others.

Oh, and if you’re one of those people who already bought a copy and loved it, please help spread the word of this special promotion. Thanks so much and have a great weekend everybody.

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