My FIRST Crime Thriller_FREE!

http://www.amazon.com/LET-THE-WIND-BLOW-THROUGH-ebook/dp/B004ZZT0XE

FREE!

For a LIMITED TIME

Luke Winters has spent his whole life straddling two worlds, Lakota and White, belonging in neither. He isn't complaining. 

He feels richer for the twin heritages and for the struggle to be an authentic human being. 

He has learned to accept himself whether or not he is accepted by anyone else.

Enter the murky, dangerous world of a Native American Noir thriller with undercurrents of forbidden love. 

A meld of Romeo & Juliet and The Departed as seen through the eyes of a disgraced Lakota psychologist back in his home town.

The woman he has loved all his life has become the feared donna of the crime family which controls the state. 

She has mastered all her enemies but one -- the disease that is now killing her. 

As she fights rival crime bosses sensing her weakness, can the psychologist save her from herself? And at what cost to himself?

What could be the theme to this book:

WHAT YOU SAY?

What am I going on about now?

Exactly.

Dialogue ... in our novels to be exact.

The best words are actions, of course. But that doesn't mean your significant other doesn't want to hear the words.

"I love you."

In the cartoon above Calvin doesn't say he trusts and loves his mother. His actions show it.

But you and I both know she'd probably like to hear it from him sometime.

I.) Good dialogue is essential in our novels if we want to succeed.
A.) What is good, "draw in the reader" dialogue?

B.) It is not actual speech.

1.) we pause.

2.) we drift

3.) we stray or become confused and stammer.


C.) It is not the State of the Union Address either.

1.) No blunt instrument of prose

2.) No chunky, thick paragraphs.


D.) It is a reflection of real speech:

1.) It is the distillation of actual speech

2.) Think of it as a pruned bonzai tree of real conversation.


II.) We interrupt each other
1.) People break into the words of the other or plain talk over one another in a "listen to me now" barrage of words.

2.) No taking polite turns in real life.

3.) So aim to have the other person respond to the other character after every line.

4.) It won't always be possible, but you should never let a person talk for more than 3 lines.

5.) Why?

6.) Never tire the eye of the reader (especially the already tired eye of the agent!)


III.) Good dialogue reveals the character of the person talking


A.) Surface message reveals

B.) The intent of the speaker.


IV.) Good dialogue reveals the inner heart and mind of the speaker while moving the story forward at the same time.


V.) Good dialogue gets to the gut level of the character speaking, defining her experience of what is going on around her and her reactions to it.


A.) Having your character's every other line questioned or reacted to by another ...

1.) creates a deeper, more dramatic story.

2.) creates more complex, more "real" characters.

3.) drawing the reader into believing the reality of your fictive world.

B.) You don't have to get this exact in your draft.

1.) Leonard da Vinci sketched the bold outline of his complete image in bold sweeps at first.

2.) He later refined and added depth after the whole composition was sketched on his canvas.

3.) That is what you do with your prose canvas.

4.) Trying to get your dialogue spot-on in the draft will only end up blocking you up.


VI.) Good dialogue requires rewriting.


A.) Rewriting in dialogue is cutting.

B.) Think of it as going on a word diet.

1.) Cut out every word you can do without as you would calories.

2.) Cut out going back for dessert :

3.) No seconds for your favorite words and phrases. One to a conversation.

C.) Read aloud your dialogue

1.) Listen to the rhythm of the interplay between the characters.

2.) Each character should have their own distinct rhythm of talking.

3.) Each character should have their own distinct way of expressing themselves.

a.) their favorite words and phrases should be different than the others in the conversation.

b.) their differing mindsets, educational background, their prejudices, their passions should mold their words into being distinctive to themselves.


VII.) Doing all that will make your conversations in your novel seem real,

 drawing the reader into becoming immersed into your story, perhaps even having them feel that the moment is actually happening.

What did George Bernard Shaw say of an irritating actress at a party? "The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech."
***
This tune gave birth to my novella - LET THE WIND BLOW THROUGH YOU
http://www.amazon.com/LET-WIND-BLOW-THROUGH-YOU-ebook/dp/B004ZZT0XE/

 

I DIED A MAN_Platform Builder's 1st Challenge

ONLY 2 MORE DAYS TO GET YOUR FREE GIFT!!

http://www.amazon.com/LET-WIND-BLOW-THROUGH-ebook/dp/B004ZZT0XE

http://rachaelharrie.blogspot.com.au/

Rachel wants us to create a 200 word flash fiction starting with "shadows crept across the wall" and ending with "everything faded." I edited a segment from my NEW ORLEANS ARABESQUE {a WIP.} :

Shadows crept across the wall. Three Spirit Night. Cosmic conjunctions aligning.

Outside, this house on Dauphine Street offered no clue to the carnage that took place within more than a century ago.

Time was unraveling. The Nameless One who had breached the Cosmic barrier, killing the Turk called the Sultan was now entering the present.

Screams of dismembered harem girls. The trilling of the Nameless One. The Sultan racing past me out the back door, running into the gardens -- where the police would find him buried in a grave dug with his own hands.

The house was a nightmare. Body parts were strewn along the staircase. The wood floors were slick with blood.

There. Right in front of me, layered in wet orange scales. An obscenity of flesh and tentacle. I would stop this abomination from preying on the innocents outside.

Perseus. Gilgamesh. Beowulf. Simple men who fought monsters. But I was a monster.

Tentacles slashed. Hungry teeth gnashed me. I laughed. I tore off my right glove, grasping a tentacle. The Nameless One screamed. I kept on laughing though it smashed me into oak walls.

It groaned, dropping me. I smiled. I had died a man.

Everything faded.

***

The murders of the Sultan and his entire household occurred in 1834 along with the fire which consumed the mansion of New Orleans' Jill the Ripper, Delphine LaLaurie. For more of the Sultan's murder mystery :

http://www.nola.com/haunted/harem/hauntings/murder.html

***

DARE TO GO TOO FAR!

ONLY 3 MORE DAYS TO GET YOUR FREE GIFT!

http://www.amazon.com/LET-WIND-BLOW-THROUGH-ebook/dp/B004ZZT0XE

DARE TO GO TOO FAR ...

in your book. Press the limits, push the boundaries of what you think will work, then make it work somehow.

Aren't you as a reader tired of seeing the same old thing :

shy girl goes to new school and meets a hot bad boy who turns out to be :

a werewolf, a vampire, a cross-dressing son of a mad scientist (caught you with that last one, didn't I?)

How about a tiger named Hobbes who imagines his human boy doll is alive and talks to him?

Spin the expected on its ear. You will snare bored readers, making them your loyal fans.

You can't go beyond yourself. No matter how strange your twist ... shadows who live and breathe, casting people behind them as they walk in the sun. No matter your idea, it will still have the stamp of your personality, your style of writing.

Be open to any whim drifting from your unconscious. To create means to think beyond the limits we have placed upon our muse. The mind has no boundaries. The imagination is the key to infinity ...

and to bestsellers.

A persecuted boy cracks. He climbs to the top of the school with a rifle and the school's yearbook. He starts shooting.

His persecutors? No. He shoots every nice person he knows. Why?

To spare them the hurt he knows is waiting for them as it waited for him.

BE A TROUBLE MAKER!

Break the rules. The shy girl falls in love with the vampire. His love for her turns him human. Now, his coven is out to turn them both!

Extreme is good.

The vampire was confident and kind. As a human he is sullen and snotty. The girl wants him to be a vampire again even if it means the death of innocents.

Her shyness hid her selfishness. The vampire realizes what a monster she would turn into if she becomes a vampire. He kills them both ...

as a gesture of the last remnants of his kindness.

The only rule :

everything in your novel must serve a purpose, down to the painting of the dying swan on the girl's bedroom wall.

It is what he looks at as he smothers the girl he loves. He sees not the monster she has become but the lovely, shy swan he thought her to be when he first saw her.

Everything in your novel must do double-duty.

The murder of the girl. The painting of the dying swan. Even going to the prom. The surface meaning. The meaning behind the character doing it.

Have we moved beyond the rules, beyond the boundaries of what you think possible?
***
Choose your side!

A FREE GIFT FOR YOU AND #65 ON AMAZON'S TOP 100 LIST!

I AM AT #65 ON AMAZON'S TOP 100 ACTION ADVENTURES!

WIND is really a Noir thriller, but I will take action adventure popularity!

All of you have done this for me. THANK YOU ALL.

http://www.amazon.com/LET-WIND-BLOW-THROUGH-ebook/dp/B004ZZT0XE/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1329609207&sr=1-1

The more downloads I get today, the closer I get to #20. Why is #20 important?

That's how many books are on the first page of the top 100. Some people who are bored this Sunday will pick one of those 20 free ones.

If WIND pleases them, then they may take a chance on one of my 99 cent books.

Will you help spread the word for me?

The Lakota way of living is one from which anyone can derive strength and healing. Luke Winters finds the inner strength for the combat with crime and passion from the teachings of his grandfather.

If you are curious, try THE LAKOTA WAY by Joseph Marshall. Reading his words, I heard some of the same stories my own half-Lakota mother told me.

It is so popular that Amazon is buying it back to satisfy reader demand. Get your used paperback copy for only $6.97 :

http://www.amazon.com/Lakota-Way-Stories-Lessons-Compass/dp/0142196096/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1329608742&sr=1-1-catcorr

***

A NEW FREE GIFT FOR MY FRIENDS!

This has been a grueling week,

so I have decided to celebrate surviving it

by giving another FREE GIFT TO ALL OF YOU.

LET THE WIND BLOW BLOW THROUGH YOU.

http://www.amazon.com/LET-WIND-BLOW-THROUGH-ebook/dp/B004ZZT0XE/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_t_2

{FOR THE NEXT 5 DAYS, THIS NOVELLA WILL BE FREE!}

(LET THE WIND BLOW THROUGH YOU is now AT #69 IN AMAZON'S TOP 100 ACTION ADVENTURE LIST! The more who download for FREE the closer to #10 it will get!)

{I grew to like the names Luke Winters and Victoria so that I cast them in other roles in a new storyline.}

Civilized Man has developed sharp elbows, deaf ears, and hard hearts in his pursuit of success. Such things bear a price.

Man has become divorced from himself, from the world in which he lives.

The time has come to listen to the echoes from our land...

the wisdom and teachings of the mountains, streams, and woods. Their words are simple and their voices are soft. We have not heard them, because we have not taken the time to listen.

We have been too busy smothering them in crypts of concrete and steel.

Luke Winters has spent his whole life straddling two worlds, Lakota and White, belonging in neither.

He isn't complaining. He feels richer for the twin heritages and for the struggle to be an authentic human being. He has learned to accept himself whether or not he is accepted by anyone else.

But losing his license to be a psychologist in Boston brings him back to his deadly home town in the Southwest.

The woman he has loved all his life has become the feared donna of the crime family which controls the state. She has mastered all her enemies but one --

the disease that is now killing her.

As she metes out revenge and fights rival crime bosses sensing her weakness, can the psychologist save her from herself? And what cost will he pay for trying?

Enter the murky, dangerous world of a Native American Noir thriller with undercurrents of forbidden love.

Again a drawing, if this receives 10 reviews {It is just a novella}, for A ROBERT DOWNEY, JR. AUTOGRAPHED MINI POSTER OF IRON MAN! Not too shabby, huh?

Also READERS IN GERMANY, FRANCE, AND ITALY CAN DOWNLOAD THIS NOVELELLA!
***

I'VE JUST SUBMITTED MY NOVELLA, DARK WATERS TO iNKPOP FOR A COMPETITION. SAMUEL MCCORD FIGHTS FOR A 12 YEAR OLD MARK TWAIN :

http://www.inkpop.com/fiction/fantasy-books/dark-waters-0

***

Romantic Friday GLITZ & GLAMOR_REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED WITH DIAMONDS

WE INTERRUPT THIS ROMANTIC MOMENT TO TELL YOU OF ANOTHER GOOD FRIEND :

RAQUEL BYRNES ... who has done a post on FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE and moi :

http://nitewriter6.blogspot.com/2011/05/french-quarter-nocturne-dark-urban.html

Denise Covey and Francine Howarth

have devised a Glitz & Glamor Romantic Challenge for us :

http://fridaynightwriters.blogspot.com/

My 399 word entry is again from LET THE WIND BLOW THROUGH YOU :

Luke Winters has spent his whole life straddling two worlds,

Lakota and White, belonging in neither.

The woman he has loved all his life has become the feared donna of the crime family which controls the state.

Join Luke as he enters a party where revenge is the main course :

The driver dropped me off, disappearing into the night. A disapproving waiter led me into a modest drawing room the size of Missouri.

Rubies and diamonds sparkled on ivory throats and wrists like drippings from the sea.

The low rumble of the music was muffled by the rise and fall of empty conversation and brittle laughter.

I looked at the ebb and tide of desire upon wealth, greed upon opportunity.

The social elite milling through the room seemed to be talking against a darkness that pressed in on them or fought to escape them.

I was caught up in a sense of unreality as if the world of sun, mountain, and desert had slipped out of reach somehow.

It wasn’t the first time. In fact I had lived most of my years in Boston in that twilight world.

My years. A long trail of disconnected moments that had failed to add up to a life. A deep voice suddenly sneered beside me.

“It is only the superficial qualities that entice. Man’s deeper nature always is rancid in some fashion. Isn’t that right, Dr. Winters? Oh, I forgot. You lost your license, didn’t you?”

I turned. Dr. Winwood, the city’s leading psychologist.

His block chin jutted out at me like a blunt instrument.

His smile was a mask, behind which his calculating mind peered out, weighing the blush here, the furtive glance there.

His smug face said he knew the bills in my mailbox and the sins of my past. He had too much free time.

“Still his success rate is higher than yours, Winwood.”

I turned to my left.

Victoria, elegant in a retro-Titanic gown that was suddenly all the rage, one arm tucked behind her back. As always the sight of her hit me like a physical blow.

Her body was as slim and slight as the branch of a birch. Her shoulders were the white of mountain peaks.

Her long, sparkling gown blazed under the bright lights as if spun from fresh-shed blood. And her face? Her face.

It was beautiful and terrible beyond any singing of it. I found myself holding my breath as I lost myself in her green eyes.

Most found those eyes frighteningly cold. But that was just a polished front to hide the fact that they’d lost their way a long time ago.

Perhaps my own eyes looked the same.
***

Friday DIRE MOMENT_LET THE WIND BLOW THROUGH YOU

Life is never certain. Yesterday proved that for all of us.

What we take for granted can be suddenly snatched away from us without warning.

How do we respond?

With fear?

With anger?

With love and forgiveness?

My DIRE MOMENT post for Denise and Francine :
http://laussieswritingblog.blogspot.com/

My entry is an excerpt from my Kindle Single, LET THE WIND BLOW THROUGH YOU,
seen through the eyes of a disgraced Lakota psychologist back in his home town.

The woman he has loved all his life has become the feared donna of the crime family which controls the state. She has mastered all her enemies but one --

the disease that is now killing her. As she fights rival crime bosses sensing her weakness, can the psychologist save her from herself? And at what cost to himself?

(677 not 400 words_Give a man an inch, and he'll take a mile, right?)

Her eyes. I had tried to forget them my whole life. They were giving me a look that would have set driftwood on fire.

Luckily, I was more dense than driftwood. Yes, that was a joke. At my expense. Story of my life.

The dark quiet of her office seemed a shroud. “You’re a fraud.”

“You talking me being a red man in a white man's world or the Psychic Reader sign on my door?”

“Psychic? You don’t believe in the supernatural any more than I do.”

“My clients do. That’s all that counts.”

“You don’t remember, do you?”

I arched my right eyebrow in a question. Not exactly a lie. Just not the truth.

“First, you were in all my elective classes in high school. Then there you were in all my classes at the University of Houston. Harvard was the same story. Were you following me?”

“I was following the money.”

“Like all the other men in my life.”

“Not you. The scholarships.”

“But then you stayed in Boston. And I -- I had family obligations.”

She meant family in two ways. Blood. And crime. Yes, that was another joke. At everyone's expense.

The “family” she ruled dealt in both blood and crime. She just dealt it out with more elegance than had her father -- as she had for nearly a decade and a half.

Her face became a map of old hurts. “When we are young, we try for it all and so lose what is right before our eyes.”

Her wet eyes saw me again. “What all did you want, Mr. Winters?”

“Very little. Not to be alone. To be loved. To finally belong.”

Her lips curled. “And you did not get even that.”

“No. No, I didn’t.”

“Nor did I.”

I said, “You have to learn to let the wind blow through you.”

“What?”

“You can’t forget the consequences of your choices any more than you can stop feeling the wind blowing upon you.”

“Is this leading anywhere?”

“Depends upon your resolve.”

Her face hardened. “I have filled graveyards with my resolve.”

“If you learn to let the wind blow through you, you will take away its power to knock you down.”

Her eyes hollowed even more. “How do I do that?”

“If you let the memories of your mistakes blow through you without letting them catch on your anger or your pride, you will not feel them. You will learn from them.”

I smiled sad. “Perhaps you might even start down a new path toward a better tomorrow.”

Her voice became a husk. “Tomorrow? How many of those do I have left, psychic?”

She thrust out her palm. I had spent years counseling the dying. I knew the pallor to the skin, the shadow to the eyes. Victoria was just beginning to show the signs.

I couldn’t resist doing what I had dreamed of doing for years. I took her
hand gently. It trembled in my fingers. I traced the irony of her long, long
lifeline.

“Victoria, the doctors have already told you the answer to that question.”

She tried for a smile, almost making it. “But you have a better bedside manner.”

She gently pulled her hand away. “I am throwing a party at the Country Club tonight.”

Her smile flashed death-cold. “Repaying old debts.”

It became almost human as she said, “Luke, my car will pick you up at Eight O’ Clock sharp.”

Her eyebrow arched. “You do still have a decent tuxedo from your days as a respected Boston psychologist, don’t you?”

“I was never respected, only tolerated. The token Native American.”

“Yet you insisted on acting like some Frank Capra hero. I hear it finally did you in.”

I smiled sadder. Did me in? It had brought me back to the town of my birth to hold the hand of the woman I had loved all my life and could never have.

“I’ll be ready.”

Her eyes went to the shadows and within her fears. “Are any of us ever ready?”

“We Frank Capra heroes are.”
***
Accompany Luke Winters into a night of revenge, death, madness, and a mystery revealed. Price of admission 99 cents.
***