Review of Deception Creek by Terry Persun

Tell Me a Story - Review

Deception Creek by Terry Persun

Book Description
Secrets from the past overtake a man who never knew his father. Will old wrongs destroy him or will he rebuild his life? Billy Maynard, raised by his mother and grandparents, comes home from college for the summer and meets Jack, an ex-con. When Billy's mother forbids him to speak with Jack, Billy wants to know why. The answers he unravels lead from deception to deception leading back to a terrible incident at the creek bend one spring night long ago. The truth about what happened, once uncovered, still has toxic effect on everything that Billy cares about. He will lose everything unless he can find the strength to transform a malignant past into a future of reconciliation and hope.


Billy comes home from college and learns that his life is a lie and that his family is full of secrets.

The hypothesis is good and promises to make a good story. However, the central characters are perhaps not sufficiently fleshed out to for us to fully empathise with them. The story also finishes rather hurriedly, and doesn’t take us on the journey it promises at the outset.

Is Your Book Different?

Tell Me A Story

Book promotion - I hate it.

When promoting a novel, you must persuade readers and reviewers that your story is distinctive and unique. As an author, if you don't understand why your book is unique, then they won’t either.

Here are some things you might ponder on, before trying to explain your book:

• What makes you believe your story treats an old theme with a new twist
• In what way does your book serve a market that other books in the same category do not
• If your tale isn't different, why did you write it?

To become successful, your book needs to be innovative, distinctive, fresh, and stimulating - be sure to let people know just what those attributes are.

Your book needs to have a reason for being there. Undertaking that dreaded book promotion, is an ideal time to explain things. Make sure readers understand why they should read your story, and what they will get from it if they do.

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Publish Post

Looking for a good read? Try:-

Short Moments - collection of 10 short stories

or

Past Sins - Contemporary fiction 

Cheap Ad-Sponsered Kindle 3G

Tell Me a Story - Tech Bits


Those who have been wondering whether to purchase an Amazon Kindle e-book reader might finally be able to come to a decision with this particular model – an ad-sponsored Kindle 3G that will retail for $50 below the standard model, which is AT&T’s $139 Kindle 3G - with Special Offers of integrated Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity without being tied down to a monthly fee, data plan or annual contract.

Undeniably, most things in this world have a price, and to secure the advantages of this discount, you will be exposed to adverts from AT&T as well as other companies.

The college multitude might also look at the new ad-sponsored Kindle  since it will support the Kindle Textbook Rental service – that allows users to rent books for up to 360 days at up to 80% off the textbook list price. Anyone already latched on to this particular version of the Kindle?

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Looking for a good read? Try:-

Short Moments - collection of 10 short stories

or

Past Sins - Contemporary fiction 

 

Unique Help With Characterization

Tell Me a Story

Not only do characters have to overcome major and minor obstacles throughout a story, they have to grow in some way. Shortcomings are what make our central characters seem human; however, readers want those shortcomings made virtuous by the end of the book.

Each central character has to surmount some part of their personality in order for them to develop during the course of the story. In order to achieve this, writers need to understand what a character’s significant flaws might be. Sometimes it’s difficult to think of, and to balance these shortcomings.

It is convenient that enneagram philosophers have classified nine personality types, each with a distinctive strength, and flaw.  These strengths and flaws can build trouble for personality types and those around, especially if a strength or flaw is taken to extremes.

As writers, we can exploit those nine types to generate conflict between our central characters and use them as internal struggles they have to conquer.

• Type One is principled, purposeful, self-controlled, and perfectionistic.
• Type Two is demonstrative, generous, people-pleasing, and possessive.
• Type Three is adaptive, excelling, driven, and image-conscious.
• Type Four is expressive, dramatic, self-absorbed, and temperamental.
• Type Five is perceptive, innovative, secretive, and isolated.
• Type Six is engaging, responsible, anxious, and suspicious.
• Type Seven is spontaneous, versatile, distractible, and scattered.
• Type Eight is self-confident, decisive, wilful, and confrontational.
• Type Nine is receptive, reassuring, agreeable, and complacent.

So there you are. Someone else has done it for you. Keep this list in front of you as you build your character’s profile, and use it to advantage. It will serve you well.

Getting Your Book Published

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AJ, I haven’t written anything seriously before, although I’ve scribbled for a long time. However, I found myself writing a book and it seems to me it’s as good as a lot out there. How can I get it published?
I have looked all over the web, and there are many publishing sites, but I have no idea what's good and what's not. Can you help?

Alison, I'm afraid as a new author you need be not "As Good As" published authors, you have to be BETTER! The problem is publishing houses always go for the safe bet. They're in business to make money, not make you famous. They have a limited number of books they publish each year. If your book isn't outstanding, I'm afraid you'll not get in they'll reach for one of their stable of established authors.

To achieve this, you must first of all make sure your manuscript is as good as it can possibly be. Be absolutely certain you've tied up all loose ends and followed industry standards for presentation.

Cut away ALL unnecessary pronouns and adverbs - nothing screams amateur more than overblown descriptions. Most new writers feel they need to give full descriptions of everything. DON'T. Mostly, what's left out says more than what's in....

When you've cut, cut, and cut; when you've polished it until it glistens, write a short query letter to your chosen agent. Explain any experience you may have, the genre of the work, the word-count, and present a VERY short synopsis of about 100 words (see book blurbs for examples). Only present a full synopsis IF the agent asks you to submit the first three chapters.

You'll find lists of reputable agents and publishers in several trade oriented books such as Writers and Artist's Yearbook http://www.writersandartists.co.uk/ .

Creating A Successful Book

Tell Me A Story


What makes a successful book? If publishers knew the answer to that, they would turn out a never-ending string of best-sellers. They don't of course, so there is no real answer, but we do know some of the things that should be in place.

• The plot must have structure and proportion. The story must be in equilibrium. Stories that are in balance are beautiful, when they aren’t, they start to feel ugly.
• A story should never turn into a diatribe of desolation and emotional distress. Readers soon get tired of things like that, they become worn out.
• Readers should associate with characters. You make this connection possible by ensuring events COULD happen in that type of situation.
• The pace of the story should vary. Some scenes should be calmer than others.
• After a chapter containing an important incident, give readers chance to recuperate by writing a more leisurely scene.... Not a dull scene of course, but one with fewer disparities, fewer ups and downs.
• Make your plot congruent with life but LARGER than life.

Give your readers interesting and believable variation and if you're lucky, they’ll give you time.

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