Guest Post: E-Murderer by Joan C. Curtis

On this anything but typical Monday morning Jenna Scali, who works part-time for a shrink, opens an email that depicts the brutal death of a young girl. On that same day the police uncover a dead coed two blocks from Jenna’s house. The e-murderer’s description creepily echos the death described in the newspapers.

When Jenna receives other emails, she takes what she knows to the police and thus begins her journey in the path of the e-murderer. Her curious nature impels her from e-messages to dead coeds to a ring of prostitutes. With the help of her quirky friends, Jenna learns that she’s more than a conduit for the killer. She’s his target. New secrets unfold, and finally her love life takes a tumble when the true killer emerges.

THE E-MURDERER is a race to find a psychotic killer before he kills again.

This new mystery series with a young female sleuth promises to keep you glued to your seat until the last page.

Buy on Amazon  / Barnes and Noble /   Kobo Books /  MuseItUp Publishing

                                                     Guest Post:

5 Misconceptions about Writing Fiction

It never ceases to amaze me when I tell someone I've written a novel, they say, "I've always wanted to write a novel." It seems everyone thinks they, too, can write a novel. All they have to do is put pen to paper.

That leads me to think about my 5 misconceptions about fiction writing.

Number 1: Everyone has a novel in them. This conception just isn't true. That's like saying everyone can paint a picture. Some of us have the skill and ability to write and others do not. Those of us who put the pen to paper or in this day and age, the words on a screen, know how hard that task is. Often after many months of work we still struggle to find the right place for our work. Just like the visual artist, the literary artist is not something we can all do.

Number 2: Fiction writing is simply writing what you know. Again, if that were the case, most of us would run out of material very quickly. We know just so much. Furthermore, fiction writers will tell you that they may begin with an idea that came out of their experiences, but that idea turns into something very different. If fiction writing were simply writing what we know, where in the world does Stephen King get his ideas?

Number 3: Fiction writers tell "lies." I have heard this many times. Those of us who create fiction are nothing more that sophisticated liars.  Right? Gosh I hate this misconception! We do not lie; we create. The art of fiction is creating a world for the reader with people they can relate to. The world and the people do not exist. But, as fiction writers, we strive to make both as close to the truth as we can.

Number 4: If you write fiction, you don't need to do any research. This is another misconception and it relates to number 3 above. How many times have you, as a reader, gotten upset with the novelist because you say, "That could never happen"? Indeed if you come out of the story, even briefly with that thought, we, fiction writers, have failed. We must not only research our place and the events that occur in our place, but we must also research our characters and their personalities. We must know them as real people. Furthermore, the dialogue must sound genuine. I eavesdrop on conversations around me, not to discover content, but to hear the rhythm of the talk so I can re-create the way people speak.

Number 5: Writing fiction is easy because you can change events or kill off characters on a whim. Nonfiction is harder because the writer must stay within the reality of the situation. Granted we can kill people off if we want to, but the story and the characters have more control than people realize. In The Clock Strikes Midnight I literally had a character tapping me on the shoulder wanting tell her side of things. Finally I relented. I wrote an entire section from her point of view. Had I ignored her or fought against her prodding, I would have gotten stuck. In reality, we cannot change the plot or kill off characters at will. Our fictitious worlds have more control on what we write than our readers realize.