Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Imajin Book’s Summer Sizzles Ebook Sale, July 1 - 15!

My publisher, Imajin Books, is about to launch a terrific two-week sale on their ebooks from July 1st to July 15. My first Evan Dunstan mystery novella, DEAD MAN FLOATING, will be on sale for only $.99 (U.S.) through the following links:




Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/573302, (use promo code HF32M)

One wrong decision…

Security guard Evan Dunstan didn’t expect to find a body floating in a campus stream. An empty vodka bottle nearby suggests that the highly despised George Krenn, head of the plumbing department, had drunkenly fallen in. Refusing to let the death of a vile man ruin his romantic plans, Evan decides to leave the body for the next shift to find.

One friend in trouble…

When it’s discovered that Krenn was murdered, Evan has a lot of explaining to do. So does his friend Sully, Krenn’s least favourite student. Evan uses his hacking skills and campus knowledge to keep them both out of jail, but the investigation forces him to question Sully’s innocence.

One mystery to solve…

Uncovering the truth proves to be more than challenging. It may cost Evan his job, his friendship, and his woman. Will Evan find the killer, or will the killer find him first?





Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Using Flash Fiction as an Outline

I've done Story A Day May for five years, now. Last year, I intended every story to feed into a collection of various previously established characters of mine. The ones based in the SAGE world, I collected, along with some others, into SHIFTY. But, in 2014, I wrote one called Salali and Vernando. That also ended up in SHIFTY, but not quite in the form I had thought.

If you follow the link and read the entry, you'll see that what I have is a bare-bones tale, with a segment in the middle that merely catalogs action. I also had a notion that everything I wrote would be only the first part of an adventure tale.

When I started expanding the story, I front-loaded A LOT of explication, backstory, and world-building into the running-away section. I tend to do that, damn my eyes. I put so much on the story's head, it falls over backward and can't get up off the floor. But, because I had written all that detail, I was able to cut almost all of it out and merely touch on it, using telling details in place of elaborate paragraphs. While I was at it, I added an encounter that turned out fortuitous, as such encounters so often are in fairy tales.

I was wrong about the continuation. The longer section of the story stub turned out to be the only adventure in it. In a way, that's too bad, because I do like a tale that goes on and on, with chases and narrow escapes and magic combs and such. This one ended up as sort of a locked-room adventure, I guess.

THE POINT IS, I've turned quite a few flash fiction pieces into longer stories, and stories into novels.
Pick the story apart. Each thing that happens is a plot point. Each plot point can be expanded and/or bracketed by rests between the beats. Room can be made for subplots. And this can all be done formally, with Roman Numerals and Capital Letters, or informally, by the seat of the pants, with the short version serving as a series of torches to show the way.

Marian Allen, Author Lady
Fantasies, mysteries, comedies, recipes

Wednesday, June 07, 2017

Revisiting My Old Fictional Friend

(reposted from my new WordPress blog)

I’m one of those weird writers who likes to work on several novels at once. The upside is that I’m never ever bored. The downside is that it takes a while to see the books published.

Since I find it impossible to release three or four new titles a year to stay visible, (trust me, I’ve tried) it’s not a huge issue. The truth is that I like to take my time with plots…allow them to simmer and merge into a story with seamless subplots and layers of character development.

So, after a nearly eighteen month hiatus, I’m finally ready to start the sixth draft of my 6th Casey Holland mystery, still untitled. This WIP has been around a while, ever since I met a bus driver a few years back. He’d been assaulted three times on the job, and has since changed careers.


 Although I was working on book five this spring (now in my editor’s hands), it feels like I haven’t visited Casey in a long time. I think this way because Casey’s in a different place emotionally in book six than she was in the fifth installment. It’ll be interesting to catch up on the latest challenges in her life. How has she grown? What new challenges must she face, beyond crime solving?


I’ve been writing about Casey for many years, and I’ve changed more than she has. Certainly, my perspective has changed, but that can be a good thing. Authors, like their protagonists, need to grow and change, don’t you think?