TOUCHING MADNESS #Excerpt (River Madden #Series) by K S Ferguson #Fantasy #AmReading

I cowered at the hooves of the eight-foot tall demon, wallowing in the soot and debris of the apocalyptic cityscape. He frowned at me, and his mouth formed words, but I couldn't understand him. Hoards of translucent black cloud nightmares rose and fell through cracks in the scarred ground, widening the fissures with each pass. They roiled around us, cutting off light coming from a source that I couldn't identify. I opened my mouth to scream, and one of the nightmare clouds poured in, clogging my throat, filling my lungs with ash, and shooting burning cinders up through my brain. I thrashed, trying to get to my feet so I could run, but I no longer had legs.

I jerked awake, thoroughly tangled in the space blanket, my legs numb, and looked into a pair of amber eyes that stared back at me along the blade of a big, scary military-type knife pointed at my throat. I swallowed hard. Boy, had I screwed up.

"Hi," I said.

She didn't blink. My God, she was beautiful in the pre-dawn light glowing through the windows. No human looked that perfect. Was she real? I freed my right hand and ever so slowly raised my index finger to the tip of the blade while she watched. When I pressed lightly against the point, it pricked my skin. I pulled my hand back. Blood welled from the tiny cut. Yep, real. Shit. She'd taken me prisoner.

"We're surrounded by cops," I said. "If you stick me, I'll scream like a girl."

Ah, crap, why'd I used that expression? She probably screamed like an Amazon warrior. How'd she even lift a knife that big? She was such a tiny thing. All the cops I'd met were big louts. But she had the drop on me, and the knife was a lot more threatening than her wand thingy.

"Who are you? Where are we? How'd I get here?" she asked. The taut muscles around her eyes telegraphed fear, and the knife trembled in her hand.

I rubbed my prickling wrist tattoos against my jeans and caught a whiff of something burnt. I glanced around the kiosk. Up near the ceiling, a trace of shapeless sooty cloud leaked out through the crack around the door. My mouth opened, closed.

"Do you smoke?" I asked, hoping she'd tell me she did. The cloud could have been cigarette smoke even if it didn't smell like tobacco… purposeful cigarette smoke, on the dark side. A hallucination. Not real.

A frown joined her stare. Oops. I'd wandered off topic. What had she asked? Who are you? But her team had that tracking device that reacted to me. How could she be looking for me but not recognize me?

"I brought you here so they wouldn't shoot you. I had to hide you while I led him away." I gave her a tentative smile and waited for her to gush her thanks for saving her life. Maybe she'd be so grateful, she'd tell me about the tracking device—and point that big knife some other direction. Then I could get away before she figured out who I was.

She added narrowed eyes to the stare and the frown. I chewed my lower lip. Maybe I wasn't communicating as well as I'd hoped. I felt woefully inadequate talking to someone as lovely as her, especially someone carrying a dangerous weapon. It could have been worse—at least I hadn't degenerated into word salad or spoken in rhymes.

Light bulbs talk to River Madden; God doesn't. When the homeless schizophrenic unintentionally fractures a dimensional barrier and accidentally steals a gym bag containing a million dollars, everyone from the multiverse police to the local crime boss—and an eight-foot tall demon—are after him. Can he dodge them long enough to correct his mistakes and prevent the destruction of three separate dimensions? If he succeeds, will the light bulbs stop singing off-key?

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Genre – Contemporary, Urban fantasy

Rating – R

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Website http://www.ksferguson.net

Host Chronicles: The Devil’s Offspring (Vol. 1) by D L Cox #Fantasy #Fiction #GoodReads

Makeda said, “The devil actually has three seeds here on earth. They’re not working together, which will make our job a little more difficult.”

Tobias scratched his chin. “That’s an interesting development. We need to inform the high council.”

“The high council?” Nat questioned.

“Yes,” Tobias said. “The Host is a heavenly warrior, but her efforts against the forces of evil are coordinated by a group of enlightened humans known as the high council. They head the Order of Light.” Tobias patted Nat on his back. “There is much you need to learn young Nathaniel.”

There was the sound of a helicopter approaching.

“Our ride is here,” Tobias announced.

Makeda led Nat and Tobias out the monastery. In the distance, a convoy of four black SUV’s and two low flying helicopters approached. Each helicopter carried a sniper. The convoy of SUV’s pulled up in front of Nat, Makeda, and Tobias while the helicopters hovered in the air about twenty yards away. Three men carrying automatic machine guns got out of each of the first two SUV’s and spread out in front of the monastery. One of the men motioned Makeda to get in the back of the third SUV. Makeda headed to the SUV, opened the door, and then ran back over to Nat.

“What’s wrong?” Nat asked her.

Makeda beheld Nat’s face and kissed him passionately on the lips. “I couldn’t be the Host until I experienced love, and it happened at first sight.” She took Nat by the hand and led him to the back of the third SUV.

Tobias smiled as Makeda and Nat climbed into the back of the SUV and then he climbed into the back of the last SUV. The armed men got back into their vehicles and the convoy pulled off followed by the helicopters.

In this Urban Fantasy, the devil’s daughter, SALEENA, and her reaper boyfriend, IZZY, elope to earth and seek to overthrow her estranged brother, SIMON CLASH, as the devil’s heir apparent on earth, but Simon is head of a powerful conglomerate, and he’s not going out without a fight. As the rivalry turns bloody, the warring siblings discover the devil has been manipulating their feud to advance his secret agenda and is using them as decoys to draw out a sword-wielding champion of humanity called the HOST, whom must be slain before the devil can unleash a reign of terror on earth.

Legend says the Host will emerge when humanity plunges into hopelessness and despair, and NATHANIEL BRENNER, the young man responsible for delivering a magic sword to the Host, hopes that is soon. Nathaniel has spent the last six years searching for the Host to no avail and has recently seen a drastic rise in demon activity on earth, which he knows could only mean one thing: humanity is running out of time. Saleena and Simon unite to save their own hides, but it may be too late—not only for the devil’s offspring, but for humanity too! The future of humanity hangs in the balance, and Nathaniel is determined to thwart the devil’s plans and find the Host.

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Genre - Urban Fantasy

Rating - PG-13

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Richard Parry Says Stories Have Less Meaning Without Settings @TactualRain #Fantasy #Thriller

Stories are all about people.

I know we’re supposed to be talking about the setting, and you want to know about magical towers in the sky or abandoned subways or starships.  I’m getting to that.

The thing about people is that they live in places.  They have tribes, families and friends they call their own (or they don’t: they’re a loner, a wolf at the edge of shadow).  They style themselves as ganguro punk, or carry the raiment of the aristocracy.

They probably have a house.  Or live in a sewer with their brother turtles.

It doesn’t matter, but all of these highlight why setting is important: the things around us help define us.  It’s not that we are making a political statement about the rich or the poor, but that it gives our reader something to attach to, and necessary motivations to the way our people act and react to what’s around them.

Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice is likely to react to an alien invasion quite, quite differently to Kastagir in Highlander.  Setting helps define where we come from so our plot can take us forward.

Setting also provides a powerful catalyst against which change occurs.  That sounds heavy, but some of the best stories are about coming from a time or place and being challenged about our preconceptions.  Thor is an arrogant, vain, warmongering imbecile partly because he is Odin’s son, and partly because he is from Asgard.  He’s a god, right?  Changing this basic setting, yanking him from the heavens and putting him on Earth as a mortal lets Marvel explore what it takes to change the nature of someone, all within a nice tight two-hour movie script.

That story has less meaning without the setting: if Thor’s a kid from the Bronx, he can’t undergo the change that makes him real, and makes the audience have sympathy for him.

Setting is a powerful tool, just as important as the names of your characters or the plot outline you define.  It can get a lot of heavy lifting done just by changing the context of how you frame the start of a story or where the people sit.

Valentine’s an ordinary guy with ordinary problems. His boss is an asshole. He’s an alcoholic. And he’s getting that middle age spread just a bit too early. One night — the one night he can’t remember — changes everything. What happened at the popular downtown bar, The Elephant Blues? Why is Biomne, the largest pharmaceutical company in the world, so interested in him — and the virus he carries? How is he getting stronger, faster, and more fit? And what’s the connection between Valentine and the criminally insane Russian, Volk?

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Genre – Action, Thriller, Urban Fantasy

Rating – R16

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Website http://www.rage.net.nz

Jennifer Cornet On No Correct Way to a Successful Story @J_Cornet #WriteTip #AmWriting #Fantasy

How to Write by the Seat of Your Pants: Outline or No?

Most importantly, before I say anything else on the topic, there is to “correct” answer to whether or not you need to outline to create a successful story. Do what works for you. With that being said, you should totally write an outline. Let me fill you in on why.

Chances are when you thought of your story you came up with a basic concept and a couple of characters. That’s great, but those elements alone don’t make a complete story. Outlining can help you as the author work through your concept and flesh it out before ever writing a complete sentence. There are a few styles of outlining that can help you accomplish this and since I work best in metaphors, I’m going to draw comparison to driving. Think of Point A as your blank sheet of paper and Point B as a completed first draft.

The first method of using an outline to travel from A to B is by only marking the major point: beginning, major events, and the ending. If I’m driving from Washington, DC to Los Angeles, California I’m going to pass through Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and finally arrive in California. This method doesn’t tell me how I’m moving through each item, only that I’ll hit that mark. By marking only the major events you give yourself ample room for creative freedom while not flying completely off the handle, losing the point of your book, and ending up in Canada somewhere.

Another approach is what I’ll call the “Google Maps” version. This method still takes you from DC to LA through all those places listed above, but it tells you how you are getting there with turn by turn directions. An outline that follows this method will include the smaller scenes in between the major events. This method might be more appropriate for those writers with a complex plot. If you have a number of story lines that overlap, jotting down the story in more detail will help you work through how all the roads weave together to meet at the end.

The final method is the “Family vacation binder.” If I were to hop into an RV with my parents for a cross country trip, you better believe it would be more planned out than a series of directions. The “family vacation binder” would include places to sight see, roadside attractions, bed and breakfast reviews from online, restaurant suggestions, and a detailed itinerary for entire the trip. This level of outlining is the most detailed. It would have scene descriptions, character reactions/motivations, important symbols or notes to be included. It could also involve multiple outlines that tie in to one another. As crazy as it sounds, this in depth form of outlining can be wildly useful. If you are writing something that is incredibly complex, you will eliminate a lot of rework by laying it all out in the beginning. It is much easier to add plot points or shift things around when they are in an outline than when they are embedded in your first draft.

In the end, all three outlining methods will get you where you want to go. It’s up to the writer to choose the method. And if you start writing and realize you would rather go to Canada than LA, you can always throw out the map and go where the road takes you. It’s your story after all.

For Onyx Bay, what started as a cathartic ink session takes an unexpected turn when a specialized blood test at the tattoo parlor reveals her true identity, which threatens to turn her entire world upside down.

When Onyx learns that she is the descendant of a fantastical race of creatures who control the global elements, she discovers that her own blood makes her a valuable prize for competing forces, known as the Orders. As the truth about her bloodline spreads, she finds herself at the center of a supernatural bounty hunt pursued by both human and creature members of the Orders willing to do anything to claim her as their own. The hunt intensifies when a prophet foresees she will tip the balance of power and upset the peace among the Orders. As she attempts to evade capture and survive, Onyx is forced to choose between her humanistic past and a supernatural destiny in order to take control of her own future.

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Genre - Urban Fantasy

Rating – PG – 13

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Connect with Jennifer Cornet on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://www.jennifercornet.com/