Blog Archives
Literary Titan Book Awards August 2017
Posted by Literary Titan
The Literary Titan Book Awards are awarded to books that have astounded and amazed us with unique writing styles, vivid worlds, complex characters, and original ideas. These books deserve extraordinary praise and we are proud to acknowledge the hard work, dedication, and imagination of these talented authors.
Gold Award Winners
Silver Book Award
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information and see all award winners.
Posted in Literary Titan Book Award
Tags: action, adventure, alien, amazon, amazon award, amazon books, art, author, author award, author interview, award, award winning author, book, book award, book review, books, children, creativity, crime, dark fantasy, ebook, ebooks, fantasy, fantasy book review, fiction, fighting, genre fiction, goodreads, horror, imagination, interview, invasion, kids, kindle, kindle book, kindle ebook, literary award, Literary Titan Book Award, literature, love, magic, mens fiction, murder, mystery, novel, novel award, paranormal, post-apocalyptic, publishing, reading, review, reviews, romance, sci fi, science ficiton, science fiction, science fiction book review, short stories, space, stories, story award, thriller, urban fantasy, war, women, womens fiction, writing, writing award, writing competition, YA, young adult
Days Gone By
Posted by Literary Titan
Days Gone By is a heartfelt tale of loss, memory, and acceptance. Jerry Veit writes a heartwarming and wholesome tale that is startlingly intimate.
We follow the main character, Caleb, four years after a car accident that occurred three days after Christmas and left him partially handicapped and terrified of leaving his house. The accident also took the life of his five-year-old nephew. The fallout of the event is not only Caleb’s physical and psychological difficulties, but the spiritual burden of guilt for being the cause of his nephew’s death. We find him now, four years later, unwilling to leave his house, even for his brother’s wedding. It is only after the mysterious arrival of past friends and deceased relatives, who give him messages that help him out of this fog of phobia and grief.
At first glance, Days Gone By may seem to echo some of the beats of A Christmas Carol, but in some ways, it brings us back to the classic fable in a nostalgic glance. Veit chose to write this story in play format, but considering the story and themes it allows the reader to enjoy the dialogue and characters even further. The reader can feel a part of the action this way and considering that the story bespeaks more fabel qualities, than a usual novel, Veit gets away with it.
The story has an almost Lifetime channel or Hallmark qualities, considering the history and cause of Caleb’s problems. What should not be left out is how Veit chooses to tackle these issues and instead seeks to bring his hero through these tribulations. It calls on the long tradition of other Christmas story classics such as It’s a Wonderful Life.
Once the reader gets used to the format of the story, it reads quite easily and fairly quickly. It is perfect for the short winter days and may be a perfect thing to pick up around the holidays. As Caleb struggles with agoraphobia readers will find it easy to connect with the sense of loss and how memory often haunts us. We all long to speak with loved ones who have since passed and Caleb is lucky enough to experience this for a short time. Hopefully, we can cherish that gift and not take our time for granted.
Pages: 106 | ASIN: B0175A7258
Posted in Book Reviews, Four Stars
Tags: agoraphobia, amazon, amazon ebook, author, book, book review, books, car accident, christmas, contemporary, days gone by, ebook, ebooks, family, fantasy, fantasy book review, fiction, genre fiction, goodreads, heartwarming, holiday, its a wonderful life, Jerry Veit, kindle, kindle book, kindle ebook, life, literature, loss, love, modern, novel, publishing, review, reviews, short stories, stories, urban fantasy, writing, YA, young adult
Literary Titan Book Awards July 2017
Posted by Literary Titan
The Literary Titan Book Awards are awarded to books that have astounded and amazed us with unique writing styles, vivid worlds, complex characters, and original ideas. These books deserve extraordinary praise and we are proud to acknowledge the hard work, dedication, and imagination of these talented authors.
Gold Award Winners
Silver Book Award
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information and see all award winners.
Posted in Literary Titan Book Award
Tags: action, adventure, alien, amazon, amazon award, amazon books, art, author, author award, author interview, book, book award, book review, books, children, creativity, crime, dark fantasy, ebook, ebooks, fantasy, fantasy book review, fiction, fighting, genre fiction, goodreads, horror, imagination, interview, invasion, kids, kindle, kindle book, kindle ebook, literary award, literature, love, magic, mens fiction, murder, mystery, novel, paranormal, post-apocalyptic, publishing, reading, review, reviews, romance, sci fi, science ficiton, science fiction, science fiction book review, short stories, space, stories, thriller, urban fantasy, war, women, womens fiction, writing, writing award, writing competition, YA, young adult
Literary Titan Book Awards June 2017
Posted by Literary Titan
The Literary Titan Book Awards are awarded to books that have astounded and amazed us with unique writing styles, vivid worlds, complex characters, and original ideas. These books deserve extraordinary praise and we are proud to acknowledge the hard work, dedication, and imagination of these talented authors.
Gold Award Winners
Silver Book Award
“For me, books are important because they feed the imagination. Books can be portals to incredible worlds and thrilling adventures or a mirror to real life, and they offer unique perspectives through diverse characters, voices, and stories.” – Allie Frost, author of I’m With You
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information and see all award winners.
Posted in Literary Titan Book Award
Tags: action, adventure, alien, amazon, amazon award, amazon books, art, author, author award, author interview, book, book award, book review, books, children, creativity, crime, dark fantasy, ebook, ebooks, fantasy, fantasy book review, fiction, fighting, genre fiction, goodreads, horror, imagination, interview, invasion, kids, kindle, kindle book, kindle ebook, literary award, literature, love, magic, mens fiction, murder, mystery, novel, paranormal, post-apocalyptic, publishing, reading, review, reviews, romance, sci fi, science ficiton, science fiction, science fiction book review, short stories, space, stories, thriller, urban fantasy, war, women, womens fiction, writing, writing award, writing competition, YA, young adult
Monster Literary Book Awards May 2017
Posted by Literary Titan
The Hungry Monster Book Awards are awarded to books that have astounded and amazed us with unique writing styles, vivid worlds, complex characters, and original ideas. These books deserve extraordinary praise and The Hungry Monster is proud to acknowledge the hard work, dedication, and imagination of these talented authors.
Gold Award Winners
Silver Award Winners
“Books are the original “golden tickets.” They grant us passage to Hogwarts, flights across galaxies, or desert treks with Alexander. Books document that which we were, what we are, and who we may become.” – Kwen Griffeth, author of The Law of Moses
Visit the Hungry Monster Book Awards page to see award information and see all award winners.
Posted in Hungry Monster Book Award
Tags: action, adventure, alien, amazon, amazon award, amazon books, art, author, author award, author interview, book, book award, book review, books, children, creativity, crime, dark fantasy, ebook, ebooks, fantasy, fantasy book review, fiction, fighting, genre fiction, goodreads, horror, imagination, interview, invasion, kids, kindle, kindle book, kindle ebook, literary award, literature, love, magic, mens fiction, murder, mystery, novel, paranormal, post-apocalyptic, publishing, reading, review, reviews, romance, sci fi, science ficiton, science fiction, science fiction book review, short stories, space, stories, thriller, urban fantasy, war, women, womens fiction, writing, writing award, writing competition, YA, young adult
How To Plot A Novel Like A Well-Timed Mechanical Ambush (Part Four)
Posted by Literary Titan

Photo Credit: essayontime.com.au
By Don Templeton
Here we are in the final stretch. Once you’ve done all your character work, you’ve got a lot of story synopses that tell the whole story from each character’s piece of the story. Now we roll it up into one blueprint, the 4-page treatment.
First, take you logline in step one and expand that into a paragraph made up of 5 and ONLY 5 sentences.
- Sentence one should cover your BEGINNING or the Inciting Incident as I refer to it.
- Sentence two will cover Act 1 to the first Plot Point.
- Sentence three covers Act 2 to the Mid-Point.
- Sentence four covers Act 2 after the Mid-Point to the second Plot Point.
- Sentence five covers Act 3, your climax.
Next, take your paragraph of five sentences and expand that into a clean one-page treatment. Expand your five sentences into five separate paragraphs. Each paragraph will describe exactly the same territory as each sentence did above. Therefore:
- Paragraph one covers the BEGINNING.
- Paragraph two fleshes out Act 1 to PP1.
- Paragraph three details Act 2 to the Mid-Point.
- Paragraph four covers the rest of Act 2 up to PP2.
- Paragraph five will detail Act 3 completely to the END.
What comes next is what Syd Field calls the “kick in the ass” assignment: the four page treatment. Note that this procedure is pretty much the same in both the Snowflake Method and in Syd Fields’ Screenwriter’s Workbook. Here’s how we break it out:
- Page one will cover all of Act 1.
- Page two will cover Act 2 up to the Mid-Point.
- Page three covers the second half of Act 2.
- Page four covers all of Act 3.
Notice that we’ve written this four page treatment according to the same space requirements we’ve described in step 2 by dividing your total word count into 4 equal chunks. Act 1 and 3 occupy one-fourth of the total length of the story and Act 2 is one half of the total. Work on this until you have a perfect four page treatment. Single space or double space? I single space it to get more info per page and can fit in all the character story lines into the final document.
The Snowflake Method gives you two extra steps in that you write up a complete scene list chapter by chapter and Syd Field does the same thing but uses index cards to make the scene list, one card for each scene.
I don’t do the scene lists. Once I have a tight four page treatment, I stop planning there and start the actual writing of the novel. For me, the four page treatment is all I need. At this point, I know EXACTLY what I’m writing. So I start writing.
Here’s why I don’t do scene lists: once I start writing, the characters will come to life and will ALWAYS take over the story with stuff you could have never seen coming in the planning stage. This is where the magic happens. In fact, what actually happens in Pretty Hate Machine is a perfect example. What happens in the novel as it reads today IS NOT what I thought was going to happen from the Mid-point on. What happens in the novel is solely the result of the characters taking over and showing me a much better series of events than I could have ever cooked up at the macro level of planning. It’s that great surprise I’ve eluded to but haven’t ruined with a spoiler. The first thing to go out the window for me is that scene list. It always changes for me once the characters take over driving the bus. So why waste time writing something that’s almost always going to change? The four page treatment is all the blueprint I need to start writing confidently.
Give your characters the freedom to come to life. Otherwise, you will run the risk of turning the characters into marionettes that are just moving around the story because the plot says they have to do this, whether they want to do that or not. Let them live, O Jedi Scribe!
They say there are two kinds of novelists: planners and pantsers (flying by the seat of your pants). Pantsers just start writing with little or no prior planning, thinking that by just writing, at some point, the characters will reveal the plot and the story will write itself. For the beginner, this is dangerous. You will probably write a lot of junk that has no business being in the story and you could end up in a dead end – not knowing what the hell to do next. I’m three-quarters planner and one quarter pantser. I only let the pantser come into play AFTER I know exactly what it is I’m writing, knowing in advance what the targets are I’m moving towards.
Only write scenes that either move the story forward or reveal something essential about character or necessary exposition like backstory. If the material doesn’t do one of those two things, CUT IT OUT. Ruthlessly. I don’t care how much you like it. If you’re not moving the story relentlessly forward, then it doesn’t belong. Literary-type writers often times lose their minds when confronted with advice like this. We’re not literary writers. We’re genre writers which means, ultimately, we’re writing to be read, by as many readers as we can attract. Literary writers seem to hold us genre writers up in something less than contempt. I feel the same way about them as they do about me.
The formula I’ve revealed here will work for ANY genre tale you want to tell. It’s not just for action-horror novels like I write. It works for any story that follows the eternal hardwired blueprint we call the 3-Act Structure. Deviate from this timeless structure at your own risk.
We’re done here. I hope you’ve gotten something out of this. Now go write your Great American Genre Novel. And when you do, let me know how this has worked out for you. I’d like to know.
www.BlueFalconPress.com
The Planet’s Most Politically Incorrect Publisher of Extreme Genre Fiction.
Home of the Extreme 1st Amendment Project.
“Use language like a baseball bat!”
Posted in Special Postings
Tags: action, adventure, alien, amazon, amazon award, amazon books, art, author, author award, author interview, book, book award, book review, books, children, creativity, crime, dark fantasy, ebook, ebooks, fantasy, fantasy book review, fiction, fighting, genre fiction, goodreads, horror, imagination, interview, invasion, kids, kindle, kindle book, kindle ebook, literary award, literature, love, magic, mens fiction, murder, mystery, novel, paranormal, post-apocalyptic, publishing, reading, review, reviews, romance, sci fi, science ficiton, science fiction, science fiction book review, screenwriter, short stories, space, stories, thriller, urban fantasy, war, women, womens fiction, writing, writing award, writing competition, writing tools, YA, young adult
Monster Literary Book Awards April 2017
Posted by Literary Titan
The Hungry Monster Book Awards are awarded to books that have astounded and amazed us with unique writing styles, vivid worlds, complex characters, and original ideas. These books deserve extraordinary praise and The Hungry Monster is proud to acknowledge the hard work, dedication, and imagination of these talented authors.
Gold Award Winners
Silver Award Winners
Books have the ability to entertain and inform us. They can make the impossible possible. They are vehicles of time travel and windows into perspectives. In books, authors are gods and imagination is their power. Transforming letters into words; words into characters and places; and these into emotions and worlds. Even if we never meet, we are connected by the stories we tell.
Visit the Hungry Monster Book Awards page to see award information and see all award winners.
Posted in Hungry Monster Book Award
Tags: action, adventure, alien, amazon, amazon award, amazon books, art, author, author award, author interview, book, book award, book review, books, children, creativity, crime, dark fantasy, dedication, ebook, ebooks, fantasy, fantasy book review, fiction, fighting, genre fiction, gold award, goodreads, hard work, horror, imagination, interview, invasion, kids, kindle, kindle book, kindle ebook, literary award, literature, love, magic, mens fiction, murder, mystery, novel, novel award, paranormal, post-apocalyptic, publishing, reading, review, reviews, romance, sci fi, science ficiton, science fiction, science fiction book review, short stories, silver award, space, stories, thriller, urban fantasy, war, women, womens fiction, writing, writing award, writing competition, YA, young adult
King Kynneth
Posted by Literary Titan
Spoilers are unavoidable in this review, so if you haven’t read the first two books, read at your own risk!
In the third book of the Atriia series, Kynneth Zeria has declared himself King after the death of his brother Jerrod. He thinks Christa is dead and blames Lor LaRosse for stealing her body. He vows revenge, but in truth, Christa and her two children are alive and living with Hannen in hiding. Dahla is raising the decoy “heir” at Cas Zeria.
Kynneth is beating the drums of war, determined to bring the other Lors under his rule and defeat Lor LaRosse. When he papers the land with propaganda, Christa’s safety is compromised. Hannen orders her to never leave their home. Of course, circumstances intervene, and she is discovered. She may be able to stop a battle, but can she stop an all-out war?
The book offers a calm beginning, following Sam/Hannen and Christine/Christa as they heal and rebuild. Their shared experience on both Earth and Atriia get a lot of play here, with some surprising and heartwarming results. The first two parts of the novel are a great way to get reacquainted with the characters and the unique Atriian dialect—which can be a challenge—so there’s a glossary in the back if you need a refresher. Hannan loves her fiercely, but she struggles with the fact that he is her stepbrother. Even if they are not blood-related, she can’t bring herself to touch him, and if she does give in to her desire, another pregnancy would certainly kill her.
Don’t let the lovely pastoral scenes lull you into a false sense of security. This is the Loper of Zeria and the Foul Fraigen Dropper we’re reading about! Passion, danger, and the madness of King Kynneth are spreading across the land, and Christa—or her legend—is firmly at the center of it all. Powerful men from all sides of the conflict want to use her for their own gain. Some want to kill her, others to use her as bait, or want to lock her away to sate their own lust for power. But Hannen can’t let her go. He stalks her with a single-minded purpose: make her his forever, or die trying.
Christa Clavin again shows her bravery, even as she fights for her life through delirium, rage, and pain. She’s true to her headstrong nature, prone to ignoring advice she doesn’t want to hear while making incredibly risky decisions. Another constant is her sense of responsibility for the people whose very lives depend on her actions.
Fair warning: some of the scenes in this book make the other two books pale in comparison. Some of the horrific situations are pure nightmare fuel; it’s no wonder Christa has so many bad dreams.
The people of Attria think Christa Clavin, the Loper of Zeria is legend come to life, and indeed, her fate may be led by the hand of the divine Sola herself. It’s not hard to imagine her becoming a beloved hero of legend. I think fans of this series will certainly feel the same.
Pages: 569 | ASIN: B01KEMXROY
Posted in Book Reviews, Five Stars
Tags: action, adventure, amazon, amazon book, amazon books, amazon ebook, atriian, author, book, book review, books, dark fantasy, ebook, ebooks, epic fantasy, fantasy, fantasy book review, fawn bonning, fiction, fighting, genre fiction, goodreads, hannen, horror, kindle, kindle adventure, kindle book, kindle ebook, kindle romance, king, king kynneth, legend, literature, love, magic, medieval, mystery, novel, pain, passion, publishing, rage, reading, review, reviews, romance, romantic fantasy, stories, thriller, war, women, women fiction, writing, YA, young adult