STORYWORLD

I have to admit it. I'm officially addicted to thrillers. Whether they're crime thrillers or twisted psychological tales - American, Scandinavian, British, Australian - I love the plot twists and turns, the nail-biting suspense, the dark atmosphere, the red herrings and the flawed protagonists that keep me spellbound until the final scene where all is revealed. Since I'm working on my own thriller, LILAH, I'm reading and watching a steady diet of thrillers which all help to keep me in the right mode for creating suspense. Here's the cover blurb for LILAH which is available for pre-order here and will be published on Valentine's Day 2015: Nick Hendricks, editor, writer and publisher of the Silver Narrows Sentinel, is coasting on auto pilot with his job, his relationships and his life. All that changes one snowy night when the beautiful and mysterious Lilah arrives in town. Caught up in her spell, Nick soon realizes that things aren’t so perfe

Can you judge a book by its cover? I guess the answer is yes if the cover looks like this: If you're reaching for something with this kind of cover, you're looking for a good bodice-ripping romance with a husky he-man prancing across the hills on a white horse in search of his lusty, red-haired lass whose shirt always slips off her shoulder at the right time. Or this: This on the other hand promises plenty of gore and torture at the hands of a panda-faced maniac who's adding something nasty to the pasta sauce. Enough of the extremes! Covers are extremely important since they contain the all-important title and  image that either draws us to or drives us away from picking up the book. Some covers have such an impact they've become iconic. Here are a few: Francis Cugat designed the cover of   The Great Gatsby, when F. Scott Fitzgerald was still writing the novel. Fitzgerald like it so much he claimed to have written it into the story. As all students of th

As a reader of many books, there's nothing I love more than immersing myself in a new world - the world of the story I'm reading. Whether it's a unique time period, geographical place, season of the year or even some weird fantasy world, I can't continue reading unless the author's creation of that world with all its unique details, its sights, sounds, smells, language, mood and atmosphere - absolutely transports me right there. The Ancient Martian world One of the first books that really achieved that for me in my earlier reading days was The Martian Chronicles by the great Ray Bradbury, whose achingly beautiful descriptions of the ancient Martian landscape and its subsequent settlement by the Earth travellers spoke volumes about the destructive effects of colonization. Hilary Mantel's brilliant Wolf Hall, lures you skilfully into the world of 16th century London by using incredible sensory images that take you into Thomas Cromwell's mind, so

In all my years of reading and writing, I've attended my share of book launches and author readings. Some have been moving, memorable, hilarious and left me wanting more. Others have been a study in tedium during which my attention has wandered between checking out whose hair has shed the most dandruff onto their shoulders, to counting the number of heads doing the "chicken droop" as the author drones on in a writerly monotone. Poets tend to be the worst offenders. It seems the moment they start reciting their lines, it's a signal to slip into a one-note dirge. There are, however, some notable exceptions. This week's blog will highlight the best, past and present: PAST: Just as in the music industry today, yesterday's novelists and poets could make a killing from public lectures or readings, often mounting huge and ambitious cross-country tours. CHARLES DICKENS touring schedule was an exhausting but lucrative one. Fascinated with the world of theatr

My experience with the world of traditional publishing has been an interesting one. I've had a U.S literary agent, moved on to a terrific new agent in Toronto, had my work read at by publishers from the Big Six (or maybe it's the Big Five now) conglomerates and still haven't made a deal. In the meantime - during all the long, long, long (and I mean l-o-n-g) waits for various editors to get back to my agent, I've published five titles on my own and reached the Amazon bestseller lists with two of them. Here are some truths that I've learned along the way for those of you interested in becoming writers or those of you who just want to know how the industry works : You need to have a complete and polished manuscript before querying agents AND a very polished and catchy query letter. Getting an agent is very difficult, but just because you landed one, doesn't necessarily mean you'll get published! Check out these comments from various editors about my

The title of my blog today is actually the title of an unusual HBO documentary  that I watched as part of my research for A PROPER LADY. It's about about the history of circus freak shows and the very unique people who chose, or in some cases were forced, to exhibit themselves in public to satisfy the curiosity of the rest of us so-called "normal" people. I soon discovered that when you look beneath the often shocking exterior and learned about the real person, that these were people of extraordinary courage and often amazing talents. There are conflicting opinions in the literature as to whether they were cruelly exploited or whether this was really the only way available for them to make a living and retain some measure of dignity. The jury's still out on that one. I've highlighted a few of them here to recognize their amazing resilience in the face of insensitivity and sometimes cruelty and indignity . CHANG and ENG Though not the first set of conjo

I just got back after a week in Los Angeles and I'm exhausted! Strange thing is, I'm a bit relieved at the cooler weather back home. A week of intensive driving on crazy streets and freeways in 30+ weather is enough to drain you. I spent the first three days at the Story Expo conference - an event for writers of fiction as well as screenwriters. I attended many amazing workshops all about the nature and structure of STORY, by legendary teachers in the business such as John Truby, Joe Eszterhas, Steve Kaplan, Jen Grisanti and many others. The colourful Joe Eszterhas The conference also included a PITCHFEST. This was my first experience pitching project ideas to a variety of top production companies. I was pretty nervous when I saw the lineup. Here's a sampling: Endgame Entertainment ( Lords of War, Looper, Hotel Rwanda ), The Gotham Group ( The Maze Runner ), Oddlot Pictures ( Ender's Game, The Way, Way Back, Drive ), Entertainment One (too many to list, check

I can't count how many times readers have told me they'd love to see my books as movies. I would too! Show me a writer who wouldn't - except maybe P.L Travers, the author of Mary Poppins, recently portrayed in the wonderful Disney movie, Saving Mr. Banks. In that spirit I've been adapting THE FOREVER ONES into a feature length screenplay and the experience has been an interesting one to say the least. Novels and screenplays share some characteristics in common, but are actually very different forms. In the screenplay everything  is shown visually and there's little room for capturing the character's inner thoughts, except for the occasional voiceover, but you can't overdo that. Instead you have to rely on making your characters move, live, act and react to other characters and circumstances. That means cutting a lot of "interior" stuff and trying to show it through action and dialogue. In a book you can fill the reader in with backgroun