The Jim Buchanan Novels Archive

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Saturday, February 6, 2021

Building of the fictional Cedar County Sheriff's Office

In order to accurately describe the building and the floors of the fictional Cedar County Sheriff's Office of my novels' protagonist, Sheriff Jim Buchanan, I constructed a diagram of the individual office space. Much research went into this rendering. I completed online research into various police stations and sheriff's offices to arrive at a good representation for a sheriff's office and its critical components in a county with a population of at least 24,000 people. 

Some could say this was an unnecessary use of time, however I find it invaluable when writing my novels. I can visualize on my diagrams where my characters are in relation to what they may view outside their windows, how they move about inside the building, how they interact with other employees and the public all the while without concern of making logistical errors in writing multiple novels. 

There are four floors (note the secure passage desks meant to keep inmates and suspects segregated from the sheriff's office employees and the general public):

The lower basement houses a gymnasium.



The upper basement includes a running track above the gymnasium, men's and women's lockers and showers, a Nautilus weight room, weapons armory, handgun firing range, and an evidence locker.



The first floor includes a lobby, dispatch center, Sheriff Buchanan's office, a staff cafeteria, conference rooms, a low-risk inmate cafeteria/library, a low-risk inmate rec facility, holding cell, booking facility, sally port, kennel, and garage.



The second floor encompasses a lunch room, bailbondsman's/chaplin's office, detectives' office, conference rooms, training facility, common area for deputies/staff desks, inmate legal rep rooms, two interview (interrogation) rooms, an observation room with on-way glass, youth officer's office, Sergeant Bonnie MacAskill's Office, and Undersheriff Rocco Salentino's Office.



The third floor is dedicated to the county jail with 20 individual jailcells and a central observation station.



Chief Plenty Coup State Park update



As you may know, I donate $1 from the royalties for each book sold in the Jim Buchanan Novels series to Chief Plenty Coups State Park in Pryor Montana on the Crow Reservation. The purpose of Chief Plenty Coups State Park is to support the vision of Chief Plenty Coups, the last chief of the Crow Nation. They offer programs for Crow youth in languages, culture, and job skills.

To date, customers of the Jim Buchanan Novels have helped contribute $2,100 to Chief Plenty Coups State Park. I've been told that an additional amount of around $2,900 from other sources has been pledged to a construction project with a $25,000 target. Here are the details as they were related to me:

Chief Plenty Coups State Park has asked the MT State Parks Foundation to help them by raising funds for the development of new housing for Park Staff and Volunteers. We have raised just over $5,000 for the project so far, including your contributions. We are hoping to complete this project by early summer 2021. Here is a brief description:

The Montana State Parks Foundation is working collaboratively with Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks to provide critical housing for staff and volunteers at Chief Plenty Coups State Park. Existing housing for staff and volunteers consists of a dilapidated travel trailer that has badly deteriorated in recent years. Due to the remote location of Chief Plenty Coups State Park, housing is unavailable in the private rental market. Providing safe housing is a critical step in recruiting and retaining high quality staff and volunteers to run the park. This project will create a partnership with Billings West High School and their industrial arts courses for the production of the housing unit. This partnership will provide hands-on educational opportunities for Montana high school students while building the housing structure that will benefit state parks staff and volunteers for years to come. Students will benefit by learning valuable skills including framing, plumbing, electrical wiring, and finish carpentry while providing a much needed asset to an important state park near their homes.

Monday, June 8, 2020

The Jim Buchanan Novels

These are promotional materials for my novels from New Shelves Distribution:





Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Of Angels and Miracles


Beginning on March 1, 2020 and running through March 5, 2020, get your free Kindle copy of Angels and Miracles on Amazon. This is a 5-day free promotion to honor the birthday of someone very near and dear to me.

Click on the title link to go to my book's Amazon Kindle page.

Wednesday, February 12, 2020

On the Road to Bozeman

On the Road to Bozeman - video shot in September 2011

Click on the title link for the video and music

Music, This Small Town by Scott Jacobs

(CC BY-SA)

https://soundcloud.com/scott-jacobs-1...

http://www.scottjacobsmusic.com/

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

A New Year's excerpt from my upcoming novel, "Miracle of the Talking Stick", the 4th novel in the Jim Buchanan series

Alma Rose awakened from a deep sleep covered in sweat as she lied in a semi-conscious state. She was unable to move and noticed there was a numbness to her right leg.

The sound of a car coming up the gravel driveway gave her a shudder that raced up her spine. She heard a car door close and then the footfalls of boots on the front porch. Alma Rose swung her left leg over the side of the bed. She still couldn’t move her right leg and just lied on the bed in a contorted position.

She heard a downstairs window shatter and glass spill onto the wooden floor. She pushed herself toward the edge of the bed and with her arms, threw the comforter onto the floor next to the bed. Alma Rose pushed herself off the bed and she fell onto the comforter which blunted the sound of her fall. She crawled over to the door, stretched her arm, and locked the door.

When she heard footsteps in the hallway, Alma Rose grabbed the comforter around her and rolled away from the door. She lied silent on the floor, near the bed. She listened for any noise but heard none. Then the footfalls resumed and stopped on the other side of the bedroom door. When the doorknob turned, she covered her mouth with the corner of the comforter in the desperate hope that it would render any spontaneous screams inaudible.

The pounding of fists on the door, caused Alma Rose to shake with every thump. Then as quickly as the beating on the door began, it subsided. She then heard the engine of a car start and then head away from the house down the gravel driveway.

Alma Rose lied on the floor in a heap. Tears welled up in her eyes as she buried her head in the comforter.

Wednesday, December 25, 2019

Underlying theme of my next novel, "Miracle of the Talking Stick", the 4th novel in the Jim Buchanan series

There is no death
Only a change of worlds.
   
  -- Chief Seattle (Seath),
                              Duwamish-Suquamish, 1785-1866

Thursday, December 19, 2019

Excerpt from my upcoming novel, "Miracle of the Talking Stick", the 4th novel in the Jim Buchanan series

Hank said, “Tell us what happened when you first spoke with the suspect.”

Abington replied, “When the suspect arrived at the scene, we approached him, but he acted as if he knew nothing. He even pretended that he thought we were there simply to evict him and his wife from their apartment. He identified himself as the victim’s husband.”

“You keep saying victim, I thought there was no body?” Hank asked.

“Come on Mr. Kelly, we know the husband and wife were the only ones living in that apartment, the wife is missing, there’s blood all over the floors, walls, and ceilings, and the husband was covered in blood. Body or no body, we know this is a clear-cut homicide investigation. All we’re looking for is a confession and a tip to where he dumped the body.”

Tuesday, July 9, 2019

Revamped website

I have reworked my novels' website to reflect changes that I have made. I have a home page but also pages listing and describing my books and where to order them. I also have a page about myself, another page about Montana, a page about my characters' fictional county, and a blog page titled Montana Mondays where I will post an entry every week. I plan to add to the website as time allows. Please share the website with anyone that you may know who is interested in my writing. 

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Of Angels and Miracles


Do we ever really consider how events on this Earth transpired? Do we ever look at gaps in the historical record and wonder, what if?

Of all the events that occurred in our lives do we sometimes look back with regret and wish they had happened differently?

What happens when we die? Are we aware of the life we just lived? Do we meet people we knew on the other side? And finally, is it possible for us to have a second chance to right wrongs that happened in our lives?

They say you know exactly when you are touched by an angel. It may be when we face danger and someone or something not of this world influences the outcome. It may be as subtle as a twisted ankle, a red traffic light, or a squirrel crossing the road causing us to delay our activity for a few seconds or it may be as profound as a missed taxi, train, or plane. Whatever it is we can explain the ‘what happened’ but the ‘why it happened’ is lost in our orderly rationalization of events.

Explore these and more in the stories included in: Of Angels & Miracles


Friday, March 15, 2019

Character Images from a Novel - "Missing in Montana"


Character Images from a Novel - Missing in Montana

An author knows how his characters look but the reader doesn't until they develop an idea from reading the book. Sometimes that idea of how the characters look is far removed from what the author had in mind.

I took the liberty to download two royalty-free jpgs of what FBI Undercover Special Agent Axe Killian and cult-abducted Eden Child (Peta Ross) would look like in my mind.

***************************

FBI Undercover Special Agent Axe Killian:






















From the back cover:


Axe Killian was a Knuckle Dragger, ex-military, now undercover FBI with a Harley, an attitude, and a secret.

***************************

Cult-abducted Eden Child (Peta Ross):















From the first sentence of my novel:

Peta Ross was trapped between a past that failed her dreams and a future that would deceive her faith.

This photo of Eden Child/Peta Ross made it onto the back cover of my novel.

Let me know what you think in the Amazon review section of my book by clicking on the title link.

Tuesday, February 5, 2019

The Jim Buchanan Novels series reorder

Originally, the order of my novels was Montana Harvest, Mystery at Little Bitterroot, and The Killing Zone and the original timeline was 1995-1997. 

However, as I continued with the series and once Missing in Montana was completed in 2018 which required backstory to describe a kidnapping in 1992, I realized that there is a certain degree of importance to not just refer to occurrences that happened in the past and how characters lived their lives during that time. It is also critical to develop these occurrences and the characters in such a way as to show the reader how these events actually took place in the author's mind. It reveals the characters in a different light and time than in the current writing. 

For instance, in the first three novels, Jim Buchanan is Cedar County Sheriff and Dan McCoy is a retired sheriff. Time is quickly passing Dan by since he retired and some of the old ways of doing things are no longer relevant or even accepted practice. Dan sometimes struggles with this and often comes across to the reader as bumbling, uncooperative, or argumentative and is called out by the people still active in law enforcement. In Missing in Montana, Dan hadn't yet retired and was still Cedar County Sheriff and Jim was a Montana Highway Patrolman. It provided an opportunity to  draw Sheriff Dan McCoy with a much different personality and as a confident and courageous law enforcement officer fully in charge of his jurisdiction.

Taking it a step further, I began writing the novel, Blood On the Rez which describes Sheriff Jim Buchanan as a 17-year old Crow youth banished from his tribe for a serious indiscretion. Not only does Jim's domineering father, Angus Buchanan come into play in that novel where he was only a reference point in the first three novels but Sheriff Dan McCoy becomes a surrogate father figure to Jim. In that novel, another character, Willie Otaktay will end up going to prison for a crime that I have referred to in my first three novels. Again, it will provide me with an opportunity to reveal to the reader different aspects of my characters' emotions and behaviors and explain what led up to the situations that I've referenced in the first three novels. 

There will be another novel, still unnamed, that will take place between the end of Blood On the Rez and the beginning of Montana Harvest that will follow Jim's career as a Montana Highway Patrolman  and leading up to his election as sheriff. It will show him fully involved in trying to solve a mystery.

Monday, February 4, 2019

Missing in Montana - a Jim Buchanan novella


As the author of the Jim Buchanan Novels, a mystery/suspense series set in western Montana, I was working on my next novel in the series titled, Miracle of the Talking Stick during the month of March, 2018. It was then that I was contacted by author Mark Reps of the Sheriff Zeb Hanks mystery series that is set in the 4-Corners section of the American West. He proposed that we collaborate along with another author and publish a 3-novella set and offer it as a free Kindle ebook on Amazon as a means to promote our other books and to introduce new readers to our protagonists.

I suggested that we meet at the 2018 Western Writers Convention in Billings Montana and iron out the details of this collaboration. We soon obtained a third partner, R. Lawson Gamble, author of the Zack Tolliver novels about an FBI agent in the American West. The three of us soon began work on our novellas. 

While in Montana, and viewing Troy Montana's 2018 Old-Fashioned 4th of July Celebration, I realized that it would make a great opening scene and cliffhanger ending scene for my novella. I researched the location and immediately began writing the novella. I finished the forty-six thousand word novella within six months of my initial contact with Mark. 

My novella, Missing in Montana was published along with Mark Reps' Native Roots and R. Lawson Gamble's The Dark Road in a volume titled, Western Justice. The 3-novella set became the #1 free book in Amazon's Kindle Store and is currently the #12 free book in Native American Literature in Amazon's Kindle Store. You can still download the Kindle edition for free.

I registered my novella with the U.S. Copyright Office and then applied for and received a Library of Congress Control Number for Missing in Montana.

After the first of the year our intent was to each publish our novellas separately in whichever format we chose. I decided to publish Missing in Montana in both paperback and Kindle versions.

I contracted with my web designer to work on a cover and from there things went pretty fast. Within a one-month time frame, I published Missing in Montana in standalone paperback and Kindle editions. You can see the full-sized cover below this text. 


The paperback version became available on Amazon on January, 31, 2019 -

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0990568415

The Kindle edition is scheduled for a March 1, 2019 release and Amazon is currently accepting pre-orders -

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NCW9NNQ

I hope you enjoy Missing in Montana and its sequel, Murders at Middle Fork expected to be published sometime in 2020.

Thursday, November 29, 2018

Willington Public Library Authors Trail



Just in time for the holidays the Connecticut Authors & Publishers Association’s Northeast Chapter in conjunction with the Willington Public Library will host a book signing/sale by local authors.

Speak with an author, find out what motivates them to write, learn what other books they plan to publish, perhaps even gain an insight into how you can also become a published author.

A signed book by a mystery novelist, a nonfiction writer, or a children’s author makes a great holiday gift and a one-of-a-kind, personalized memento.

The public is invited to a collaborative book signing
by published authors from the
Connecticut Authors & Publishers Association (CAPA)
Saturday, December 1, 2018
 9:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Willington Public Library
7 Ruby Road, Willington, CT 06279
860-429-3854, www.willingtonpubliclibrary.org

CAPA’s a nonprofit organization assisting authors & publishers
For more information, please go to www.aboutcapa.com

Monday, November 19, 2018

Willington Public Library Author Trail & Holiday Craft Fair


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December 1, 2018
Willington Public Library
7 Ruby Rd.
WillingtonCT 06279
http://www.willingtonpubliclibrary.org/
PRICE: Free admission, local author book sale and signing to run concurrently with the Willington Public Library Annual Holiday Craft Fair.
TIME: 09:30 am - 02:30 pm

Just in time for the holidays the Connecticut Authors & Publishers Association’s Northeast Chapter in conjunction with the Willington Public Library will host a book signing/sale by more than 15 local authors to run concurrently with the Willington Public Library Annual Holiday Craft Fair.

Speak with an author, find out what motivates them to write, learn what other books they plan to publish, perhaps even gain an insight into how you can also become a published author.

A signed book by a mystery novelist, a nonfiction writer, or a children’s author makes a great holiday gift and a one-of-a-kind, personalized memento.

The public is invited to a collaborative book signing by published authors from the Connecticut Authors & Publishers Association (CAPA)

Saturday, December 1, 2018

9:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.

Willington Public Library
7 Ruby Road, Willington, CT 06279
860-429-3854, www.willingtonpubliclibrary.org

CAPA’s a nonprofit organization assisting authors & publishers 
For more information, please go to www.aboutcapa.com

Sunday, November 11, 2018

Elk/Moose Crash Test

When I was in Montana this past summer we had a few near misses with mule deer darting onto the road. Even driving below the speed limit and paying attention to your surroundings, animals have a spontaneity to their movements and are unpredictable.

Here is a video simulation of a composite dummy showing what could happen if a car broadsides a moose.


Also, notice in the simulation the airbag does not deploy due to the strike being too high to trigger a deployment since the hood of the car only hits the legs and tends to flip the animal's center mass up onto the hood and through the windshield.

I stumbled onto this YouTube video doing research for my next novel which will have an animal strike scene.

Please slow down on the roads. Even today I had to swerve onto the shoulder because an oncoming car crossed over the center-line. There is too much at risk to be speeding, running red lights, texting, or talking on the phone.

YOUTUBE.COM
Elk/Moose Crash Test - Volvo V70 Estate (70 Km/h)
A test performed by Folksam and VTi showing how different heights and structures affect the result of an…

YOUTUBE.COM
A test performed by Folksam and VTi showing how different heights and structures affect the…

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Chief Plenty Coups

For every book sold going back to the beginning, I'm donating $1 to Chief Plenty Coups State Park where the vision of Chief Plenty Coups carries on. http://stateparks.mt.gov/chief-plenty-coups/




This past summer one of my stops with the Western Writers of America was Chief Plenty Coups State Park. There I met Park Manager Aaron Kind who was so respectful of the artifacts located in the basement and so knowledgeable of the life of Chief Plenty Coups and the history of the land that Chief Plenty Coups donated to the State of Montana.

The last chief of the Crow Nation, Chief Plenty Coups experienced a vision when he was very young that non-Native American people would ultimately take control of his homeland (Montana), so he always felt that cooperation would benefit his people much more than opposition. He very much wanted the Crow to survive as a people and their customs and spiritual beliefs to carry on. His efforts on their behalf ensured that this happened, and he led his people peacefully into the 20th century.

One of his famous quotes is: "Education is your greatest weapon. With education you are the white man's equal, without education you are his victim and so shall remain all of your lives. Study, learn, help one another always. Remember there is only poverty and misery in idleness and dreams - but in work there is self-respect and independence."

Sunday, October 28, 2018

Western Justice - a free Kindle novella


Western Justice is a collaboration between authors Mark Reps, R Lawson Gamble and myself, Felix F. Giordano to publish three novellas in a single book. I met with Mark at the Western Writers of America annual convention in Billings Montana during June 2018. We ironed out the specifics and designed the expected format for the book. When R Lawson came on board we saw our project become a reality. Our intent is to offer the three novellas in one volume for free as a way to introduce new readers to our other books. 

My novella, Missing in Montana the last novella in the set, was a remnant of two or three chapters of previous books that never migrated into The Jim Buchanan Novels. With a few character changes (a supporting character from The Killing Zone becoming the protagonist for Missing in Montana) an added back story, a plot that I felt would not only become a compelling story arc but lend itself to a sequel while also becoming a tie-in with the Jim Buchanan Novels timeline, I began the project in April 2018. Five months and 46,000 words later I finished the novella.

I plan to write and publish two successive novellas which will be part of the Jim Buchanan Series but will be called the Axe Killian Trilogy. Missing in Montana is the first novella and Murders at Middle Fork and The Coldfoot Killer are the projected working titles of the sequel and the last in the trilogy, respectively. 

I have plans for Axe Killian to be the protagonist in future full-length novels, one taking place in Kauai, Hawaii, The Scarlet Max, and a second in Iceland in the towns of Akureyri and Mývatn, Dimmuborgir, Dark Fortress

Above all, I am also working on additional Jim Buchanan Novels, Miracle of the Talking Stick, Incident at Dead River Junction, Mystery at Fort Benton, and Blood on the Rez.





Wednesday, July 25, 2018

How to Write a Short Story: Six Crucial Steps - reposted from DailyWritingTips

How to Write a Short Story: Six Crucial Steps - DailyWritingTips



Posted: 24 Jul 2018 11:53 AM PDT
short-story
Short stories are tricky to write well. Every word counts – and you don’t have long at all to establish characters and get the plot going.
While most of my fiction-writing time goes into novels, I’ve written a bunch of short stories over the years (and even won an occasional prize).
There’s plenty to like about the short story form:
  • You get the satisfaction of completing something! I’ve often taken breaks from ongoing novels to write short stories, simply to be able to finish a piece of writing. If you’ve ever written a story of any length, you’ll know how satisfying finishing can be.
  • You can explore lots of different ideas – without committing a huge chunk of time to them. Maybe you want to write about a weird living spaceship in one story, a bullied teenage girl in another, and a character who never celebrates or even acknowledges his birthday in a third. You might not want to explore any of these ideas at novel or novella length … but you could enjoy fleshing them out into short stories.
  • You can have fun with structure and viewpoint. Things that would be unlikely to work for a whole novel (like writing from the point of view of an inanimate object, or writing in the second person, or having a whole story that builds up to a twist ending) can work very well in a short story.
  • You can enter competitions. This is a rather less artistic consideration than the others … but most competitions are for short stories rather than for novels. Having a deadline (and often a topic or prompt to work from) can be really motivating, and winning a prize – or even getting shortlisted – could be a great boost to your writing career.
Hopefully, you’re keen to give short stories a go. (If you’re not sure what sort of length you’re going to write to, check out my post Story Writing 101 for help with story-writing more generally.)
These are the six steps you need to follow to complete a short story:

#1: Decide How Long Your Story Will Be

This might seem like an odd place to begin – how can you know how long your story will be until you’ve written it? The length of your story, though, will make a big difference to how you plan and begin writing: a 800 word short story will be very different in nature from an 8,000 word short story.
Depending on your aims with your short story, the length might be pre-determined for you. If you’re entering a competition, for instance, there’ll almost certainly be a minimum and/or maximum word count.
If you’re not sure what sort of length to aim for, check out Maeve’s post How Short Is Short Fiction? to figure out what length your short fiction should be.
Tip: If you’re new to writing short stories, around 2,000 words is a good length – long enough to give your story a bit of breathing room, but short enough that you only need to develop a couple of characters and a single plotline.

#2: Come Up With Several Ideas

Unless you already have a clear idea in mind for your short story, I’d suggest coming up with several different ideas. This is especially crucial if you’re entering a themed competition: chances are, the first idea that you have will be pretty similar to the first idea that pops into other people’s minds!
In two decades of writing fiction, I’ve found that ideas can come at the oddest moments. You can definitely help the process along, though, by setting aside time to deliberately brainstorm. Write your topic, prompt or starting line on a piece of paper, and jot down anything that comes to mind.
If you don’t have a particular topic for your story, you might want to use a prompt to help you.
Tip: Don’t push yourself to write about an idea that doesn’t really interest you. Keep brainstorming until you hit on something you really want to write about … or step away altogether and wait to see if an idea comes to you out of the blue.

#3: Pick a Couple of Characters

Your idea itself might have brought characters with it (e.g. if your idea was “a young colleague is promoted above his older, resentful co-worker”)  … but if not, now’s the time to figure out the main characters for your short story.
In a short story, there’s only space for a small cast of characters. While there’s no “rule”, I find it works best to have one protagonist and one other main character (who might be supporting or opposing the protagonist).
If you try to have lots of characters, it’s tricky to introduce them quickly enough without confusing the reader – and continuing to follow several characters throughout can make your story seem muddled or slow. Focusing on two characters (even if other characters come in briefly) helps you to structure a satisfying story.
Tip: Sometimes, a fairly “normal” idea can be made into a great short story by shifting the perspective. The story of a wedding, for instance, might not be especially interesting on the surface – but it could be far more fascinating told from the point of view of the lively five-year-old flower girl.

#4: Plan Your Short Story

Every story needs a beginning, middle and end – I’m sure you’ll have heard that before!
There are two different ways to look at the beginning, middle and end though:
  • The chronological structure: this is how the events would look if you placed them in time order. E.g. the first event in the story might be the meeting between the protagonist and antagonist.
  • The narrative structure: this is how the events look in the order in which you tell them. E.g. the first paragraph of the story might show us the protagonist and antagonist in the middle of a fight.
One of the great things about short stories is that you can do some interesting things with structure. It might make sense to tell the story out of chronological order, for dramatic effect – for instance,  you might start a story with a mild-mannered grandmother being arrested, then backtrack to explain what happened, then return to the arrest and the events after it at the end of the story.
When you’re planning, think about the most effective way to tell your story. Chronological order will work well for many stories, but you still might want to bring in past information through summary, dialogue or even flashbacks. (Be careful with flashbacks, though; they can easily disrupt the pace of a short story.)
Tip: You might not hit on the perfect structure for your story first time around. You might want to write a rough plan, draft out your story, then think again about the order in which you want to present your scenes.

#5: Draft Your Short Story

This is perhaps the trickiest step – because it’s time to sit down and actually write your short story.
Hopefully, at this stage, you’ve got a clear idea in mind, plus a rough plan or outline for your story. That’ll make the writing much easier.

Viewpoint and Tense

You may still face some decisions at this stage, though, particularly when it comes to viewpoint and tense. Sometimes, there’ll be a particular choice that just feels right for your story – maybe you have a central character with an unusual perspective and/or voice, and you want to write in the first person from their perspective.
With viewpoint, you might write from:
  • First person (“I”) – particularly useful if you want to tell a story through letters, diary entries, text messages or similar
  • Second person (“you”) – this is an unusual choice but can be sustainable in a short story
  • Third person (“he/she”) – this is the most conventional choice and you can’t go far wrong with it
In a short story, I’d recommend sticking to one character’s viewpoint (even if you’re using third person), unless you have a good reason to switch between characters.
With tense, you might write in the:
  • Past tense (“[he] walked”) – the most conventional choice
  • Present tense (“[he] walks”) – often seen as a more literary choice; can work well with a first-person perspective in particular
  • Future tense (“[he] will walk”) – an unusual choice but not out of the question for a short story

Writing the First Draft of Your Story

As you write the story itself, try not to worry too much about getting every word right: you’ll have time to edit later.
It’s usefully helpful to:
  • Move the plot along quickly. You don’t have space for lots of introspection (characters dwelling on their thoughts).
  • Show, don’t tell. Because short stories are so compact, it’s very easy to slip into telling – but it’s better to paint a scene and trust that readers will understand it!
  • Use dialogue effectively. It should either advance the plot or reveal character … or both! Don’t have dialogue for the sake of it.
Tip: If you can, it’s helpful to get a rough draft of your short story written in just one or two writing sessions. Can you set aside a full afternoon or evening to focus on your writing? (If not, don’t worry, just work with what you have – but do try to get that draft done quickly, or you’ll spend a lot of time trying to figure out where you left off.)

#6: Edit Your Short Story

Finally, it’s time to edit your short story. Depending on how your first draft worked out, you might end up doing a lot of rewriting at this point – perhaps you’ve realised that your characters weren’t quite right, or you’ve uncovered a whole new layer to your story, or you want to tell it in a completely different order.
If you have major changes to make, get those done first before you start finalising word choices and sentence structures – there’s no point perfecting three paragraphs that you later cut completely.
Once you’re happy that your short story is in reasonable shape, with no more big changes to come, you can go through it and edit on a sentence level. For me, this normally means cutting out unnecessary words and flabby sentences, and paring the story back a little, in order to make what remains even more powerful.
Tip: However much editing you do, you’ll need to do a final pass through your story to look for typos and grammatical mistakes. It’s easy for these to creep in during editing – so it’s always good to do that final check. Many writers find it helpful to proofread on paper rather than on the screen.

Short stories might look easy on the surface. They’re short, after all! But writing a good short story can be really tricky, because you don’t have long to make an impact on the reader … and every word needs to count.
Best of luck with your short stories! And for lots more help with writing stories of all lengths, from flash fiction up to novels, check out our ‘Fiction Writing’ archives.

Thursday, July 5, 2018

Amazon Prime Day - Jim Buchanan Novels













Amazon Prime Day begins on July 16 at 3 p.m. ET and runs for 38 hours. Amazon is promising more than a million deals around the world.





However, Red Road Publishers is getting an early start and offering the Jim Buchanan Novels at its lowest prices ever!

Get them at: 

https://www.amazon.com/default/e/B00G5YX89K/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1530765690&sr=8-1&redirectedFromKindleDbs=true