I was talking last Saturday about ‘A Case of Make Believe’ the working title of Delamere five which I am now working on. The update is that I am now over 22,000 words in and approaching the end of act one. I know how the story will end, I know certain things that will happen along the way, but I’m not yet sure how we’re going to get there. That’s the fun part as I wade through acts two and three before getting to the climax in act four.

Four Act Structure

Most of my stories are constructed this way, and a very rough outline would look like this:

Act one           Ordinary day, a case comes in, everything needed is gathered

                        Emotional story set up

Act two           We’re off into the case and encounter problems and friends

                        Emotional story develops

Act three         After a midway twist, the story picks up a little pace

                        As does the emotional through line (if it’s important)

Act four          We’ve hit a crisis which leads to a climax and denouement

                        Reflected by the emotional story tie up or make up etc.

That is a very, very basic outline of a classic four-act structure, and you will see it in about 75% of all films (I don’t know the real number, but it’s a lot). There are other structures, but this is the one I favour. The hard part is filling in acts two and three without it reading as though they are just filling. That’s why there’s usually an emotional line too. In ‘Where There’s a Will’ it was the relationship between Marisco and Newt, in ‘Finding a Way’ it’s Jack accepting he’s gay and starting to fall for Larkin. And so on.

Other Things

While I am beavering away on the typowriter, I am also promoting the books, and that’s what I have for you here. The 19th Century Historical Fiction promo has ended, and my readers contributed 40 or so hits to the page, so we may well have helped 40 books gain more publicity. There are three still running though, and they are on until the end of the month. I know I’ve mentioned them before, but that’s my part of the bargain. I participate with other authors, and we share each other’s work via these promo pages. As usual, they cost nothing to browse, and in some cases, all books are on KU while all are on Amazon.

Click the Pics

If you’re in the mood for some steamy MM romance you could try All The Feels:

If you want more crime and gritty stories from all eras, try All Crime July:

If you fancy something spooky and fantastic, then Riveting Reads is for you: