Heather Ames's Blog - Posts Tagged "series"

My next book, "Indelible" is a mystery/suspense set in Miami, and the first in a series featuring homicide detective Brian Swift and socialite Kaylen Roberts. Projected release date is 6/17/14. More details are available on my website: www.heatherames.com

1 day to go before the release date for "Indelible."
I'm working on publicity with Mundania Press, and a new website with Paula Johnson. Until the new website is completed, my old one is still up and running, and I post to it on a regular basis.
It's a frantic, exciting time.

Now available in paperback and e-book form from Mundania Press (http://www.mundania.com/)
in e-book format: Amazon Kindle, Mobipocket.

It has truly been an exciting and very full week for me!

When I read the first book in a series, I want to feel that I'm invested enough in the characters to want to go forward with them on their journey. What I've done with "Indelible" is put Brian and Kaylen onto the path of discovery: self, emotional, even career. This will not be a static world where everything remains basically the same, with only cases needing to be solved. Relationships evolve, careers go through peaks and valleys, old scars have to reopen in order to heal, and riddles left unsolved will slowly be answered.

I want to take readers with me on the emotional roller-coaster of their lives.

When I first presented an earlier version of "Indelible" to the Alameda Writers Group's Fiction SIG (Special Interest Group) it was shorter, far less edgy and had a fish-head prologue that I had been convinced to add by a very large Romance Publisher, to meet their guidelines for a Romantic Suspense. The prologue was added to tone down "frightening" aspects of my opening chapter.

Thanks to the AWG, I removed said prologue, pretty much left the opening the way it had originally been, and revised from there. The framework for the book was always in place. What I added was more meat, more conflict and more thrills for the ride. I also brought Brian Swift's brother, and Kaylen Roberts' boyfriend, Tim Madison, out of the shadows and made him into a flesh and blood character, although he's never actually on-stage.

This book, which my then-agent marketed as a Romantic Suspense, was actually a mainstream Mystery/Suspense with some romantic elements, and could never meet the Romance industry's restrictive guidelines even while hiding behind a curtain pulled by a 3 page intro.

As the months rolled by and the pages of my revised and lengthened manuscript were presented at the SIG, another member of the AWG kept telling me that "Indelible" was the first book in a series.

I kept disagreeing. "Indelible" was a stand-alone. However, as the book progressed and the sub-plots developed, I realized she was correct--this was, indeed, a series. Listening to critique group members in this wonderfully supportive and insightful group led me onto a different path, and the one to publication.

I loved the book club meeting where "Indelible" was the book of the month. Questions were as varied as the attendees. Readers asked about my research, and how I came to choose the names of the protagonists (I have always liked Brian, Swift came from the writer, Kaylen just came to me, and no, although I fleetingly thought maybe her mother was Kay and her father, Len, that wasn't the reason she has that name at all. Her father will feature in book 3, "Maine Issues," and he's a bit of a pill and named Preston.)They were interested in how I knew about boats, clubs, and many other topics. They didn't ask about how I wrote about people going into dark places and even darker situations. Perhaps they were afraid to find out the answers? They are all waiting for the sequel, "Swift Justice."

As an author writing her first series, I'm always interested in how much back story readers want. Characters affected by their pasts, including what went on in the previous book, which may have had life-changing events, will react differently to some situations than would characters without those experiences. Will readers think their reactions are true-to-character or contrived to fit the plot without some thumbnail explanations, skillfully (hopefully) inserted?

I'm currently reading 2 books. One of them is a chronological read, the other random. The chronological leaves me wondering whether I would find the interactions between the characters somewhat over-the-top if I hadn't read the previous novels. The other has copious references to past events and I find myself somewhat irritated by the slowing of the plot as a consequence.

So, I'm left thinking that adding back story may be a personal preference for the reader...or not.

"Swift Justice," the second book in the "Indelible" series has a partial and synopsis under consideration. While waiting to find out the fate of this book that took so much out of me to write, I decided to do myself a favor of sorts and pull out a manuscript that my then-agent tried to market as a hardback psychological suspense. I had always seen myself as a paperback writer, and the editors' feedback seconded that feeling. My agent and I parted company when she was unable to sell it, and I shelved that big book for a long time. As I go through it now, updating, editing and cutting, I can see how much my writing style has changed. I've cut the first 131 pages down to 97, including throwing out one entire chapter. I believe "Night Shadows" will be not only shorter and tighter, but a smoother read by the time I get through with it. None of the suspense will be cut out of it, and all the quirky characters will remain. I always did like a challenge.

I tweaked the title of my next book in the INDELIBLE series after another review of other works with the same title. I came up with a TV series named Swift Justice and another author using the title, too. I decided I didn't want to risk a similar fate to the story of a book club member who read the wrong book as there were 10 choices (and obviously, she didn't check for the author's name.) I'm using a play on Brian Swift's name for this (Book 2) and the title of the next book in the series, SWIFT RETRIBUTION (Book 3.)

I'm reviewing the manuscript one final time before it goes for formatting, and working this weekend on tweaking the cover. I'm still on track for an end of June release date, squeaking through to the finish line.