Friday 21 August 2015

After writing a million words, you need to edit them...

So Last year I wrote a million words of various things, wasn’t easy, and in fact up until the last week of the year there were doubts about if it was going to come off...

But it did, and I was left with five novels, a few hundred articles, and several dozen short stories...

The Challenge this year was to edit them into something resembling publication worthy and then get them out, it turns out that editing is far harder than writing the things in the first place, but I’m at a point where I’ve got two of the novels good to go and I’m considering which one to put out there first.

To this end, I need readers for their opinion, I’m sending out the first part of each book as a tester, with a request of each reader not of a full critique, grammar check, or anything like that.  I just want to know which one you found more interesting...

There’s about fifty pages in both of the testers, enough to get into the story without giving everything away, I can’t offer much in the rewards for this, all those helping will get a mention in the book when it comes out and a copy of it as well.  Those that know my writing know that I write reasonably dark fiction, so both stories have an edge to them, not in the red triangle category, but enough to get an 18 rating when the BBFC gets hold of them...

The two novels are:

The Shift – In a world where soldiers can be killed a thousand times but only die once, the walls of sector three have stood unbroken since the creation of the city, but the enemy has changed, and now the wall is threatened by more than just the threats outside.  Leo 17, fights alongside Johnny 3k, Once a Night Jones, and Dead Girl Gibson to keep their home standing, despite the best efforts of those on either side of them.

World War Wolf – The human race is over, the wolves ran faster and bit harder, those who remain live in a world overrun with furry bastardry.  In the north, Laurentia Wyndham, a captain in the british army, leads what remains of her garrison south to find the cause of the war.  In the south, Weylyn, Once a man and now Alpha of the London east packs, begins to question his role in the war and if any part of him could still be called human.


All those interested, mail me at john _ automatic @ yahoo . co . uk and I’ll send you the copies out.