PD Martin's Blog

November 27, 2009

Quaking in my boots

Filed under: Coming Home ebook — Tags: , , — PD Martin @ 11:10 am

You guys are deciding Sophie’s fate. That’s right, you get to vote for what’s going to happen in each chapter of my next book. Ahhhh!!!

You’ve probably never thought about the decisions an author makes when writing a book. From the get-go, we’re making decisions – some big, some small. In terms of crime fiction, it’s things like:

  • Who is our main character and what are they like?
  • What’s the crime?
  • Will someone die?
  • Whodunnit?

These are massive decisions, plus along the way an author is constantly deciding what will happen next, how the crime will be solved, what clues will be left and how the main character will develop.

This week I launched Coming Home – I describe it as an interactive ebook, in which participants get to have their say in the plot and characters. And it’s extremely scary for me that these decisions are largely out of my hands. Sure, I nominate the options, but ultimately you decide.

It was less than 48 hours ago that I “launched” and I’ve found myself constantly clicking on the “show results” section for each of the initial two questions. I have my favourite/s, of course, but majority will rule.

You vote, I write it. I’m a slave to your whims! And I’ve already had one suggestion for a future question: “Vote for lesbian love scene” Yes or No?  As you may have guessed, this was suggested by a man!

Anyway, this is a scary process for me and I’ll probably blog about my progress each week. Who knows how the book will unfold. I can tell you this: I haven’t planned any follow-on chapters/options/questions. I have NO idea where this is going.

No wonder I’m quaking in my boots.

Comments (2)

November 20, 2009

Review: Exit Strategy by Kelley Armstrong

Filed under: Book reviews — Tags: , , — PD Martin @ 9:50 pm

In this week’s blog I’m going to review a book I finished a couple of days ago, Exit Strategy by Kelley Armstrong.

Kelley Armstrong is better known for her paranormal books and series (including the Women from the Otherworld Series), but Exit Strategy is about a hitman…well, actually a few hitmen, a couple of hitwomen and a serial killer.

The main character, Nadia Stafford, is an ex-cop turned hitwoman/vigilante. Of course, being a hitwoman isn’t a position of natural reader empathy or identification (I’m assuming anyone reading this isn’t a hitman/hitwoman)! Armstrong counteracts this with Nadia’s difficult childhood, time in law enforcement and the fact that she only accepts jobs in which a bad guy is the target.

I enjoyed the book and it certainly kept me reading, especially the last 100 pages or so when I could feel the tension rising and the resolution just a heartbeat – or a 100 pages – away. However, I found myself caught up and annoyed by the dialogue, which included lots of unnecessary question marks and full stops. I’m not normally a stickler for this type of thing, but about half way through the book it started to annoy me. A section of dialogue might say ‘Hurt? Maybe. Figured it out? Yes.’ While this may work well if used sparingly, this style of dialogue was throughout the book, including lots of question marks where it wasn’t a question at all.

Despite this, it was a very good read and I love the concept in general – someone in law enforcement who couldn’t take the injustice of the justice system any more.

Have you read it? What did you think?

Comments Off

November 13, 2009

What to write next?

Filed under: Writing — Tags: , , — PD Martin @ 2:07 pm

It seems impossible to think that book 5, Kiss of Death, is done…let alone that it’s the middle of November! How did that happen?

Although I’ve got lots of projects on the go (updating my website, a new interactive e-book (more on that later) and a book trailer for Kiss of Death) I do find myself thinking more and more about the next book. Soon it’ll be time to start researching and writing.

To Sophie, or not to Sophie? That is the question. I’ve got five ideas kicking around taking up valuable space in both my conscious and subconscious. Soon I need to focus on one. But which one?

Book 6 in the Sophie series? A new kick-ass female character with more action and intrigue? A noir-style series featuring Benson from Fan Mail – remember him? Stories from the world of undercover cops/agents? Or another genre entirely? Mmm…..

Simmer, simmer, clunk, clunk (they’re the sound effects currently emanating from my brain). But soon it will be time to turn up the heat and bring something to the boil; and hopefully there’ll be little to no clunking during the writing process!

Comments (5)

November 6, 2009

New blog features, Melbourne Cup, hitman manual

Filed under: PD Martin website,Research,The Killing Hands — Tags: , , , , , — PD Martin @ 9:20 pm

Today I’m launching my new blog features! My web guru has incorporated WordPress into the site, which gives me some of the more standard blog features such as the blog roll, an RSS feed and a comment field.

So go ahead, write something! Yep, scroll down and type. You can do it! And click on the RSS feed button on the left to sign up for the blog feed.

Onto writing…or maybe not….

I have to confess, not much went on this week in the way of writing or author-type activities. I did, however, back Crime Scene in Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup. How could a crime author not put a few bucks on a horse named Crime Scene? And I wasn’t alone, so congrats if you were enough of a crime fiction fan to back the horse.

This week I’ve also fixed up the formatting for The Killing Hands case file. So if you’re interested in some behind-the-scenes info, visit the case file and my references (which includes the somewhat bizarre Hitman Manual for Independent Contractors). One of my favourite extracts is below:

‘Because of their uncanny ability to get into places and situations a man might find hard to duplicate, because of their deceitful, “game-playing” natures, and because a woman can be twice as vicious as a man, a woman can be a better hired executioner than a man.’

So guys, beware…and don’t forget to be nice to your wife this weekend!

Comments Off