Launch of a Novice Fiction Writer’s Path

I am pleased to report that I have been writing thrillers for almost 20 years. It began with a daughter studying at Oxford and having to write a novel in a tutorial. She picked out an event that actually happened to us on a train ride through Switzerland. There were a few places where she needed some additional life experience to fill in blanks in the story. I became hooked.

Over the years, I have written 4 manuscripts. I never submitted them to anybody. Just  enjoyed the process of writing. I have spent almost 40 years writing professional international taxation books from prominent publishing houses. I naively hoped that success as a non-fiction writer would make climbing the fiction ladder a simple process.

 Wrong!

My sweetheart read the manuscripts and suggested that they had potential. I chose one that I thought would have appeal to readers. Since I knew nothing about the fiction publishing business and heard horror stories about authors who lose their rights to bankrupt or unethical publishers, I decided to self-publish that first book, which became Riddle of Berlin in 2008. Reviews have been generally positive. Through the social media process, sales continue at a pace to indicate that there may be potential in my stories.

Beginning about years three ago, I became serious in wanting to improve my writing and fiction marketing skills. I took an Author Buzz course from MJ Rose on developing a marketing plan. In the course of working with MJ, she suggested that my manuscript for Dust Scenario had potential. She suggested that I engage a skilled developmental editor, which is an expert on framing manuscripts to be successful thrillers. 

I then engaged a wonderful editor. She advised that her comments would be detailed if she thought the story had potential, minimal if she had little interest. I received 26 single-spaced pages of comments. I took this as a positive sign. It has taken me almost 18 months to revise the text in line with these comments.

When the development process had run its course, the editor suggested that I needed to engage a line editor to review for syntax, punctuation, style, and what not. I am in that process now.

I have now completed the manuscript for Dust Scenario. In essence, it is the story of a woman’s war after her husband has been murdered, children kidnapped, and told to be quiet. He was a Super Bowl champion quarterback, then Wall Street success, and Secretary of Treasury when his plane crashed into an iceberg with polar bears. To recover her family, Jaspar must become a warrior doing things that would have been inconceivable in her prior life.

I will post a synopsis shortly as I commence the “line editor” process.

Warms, Cym