Writing a Book Blurb

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I have just finished the draft of my new novel, which has settled itself on the title ‘Journeyman Joe’, and I must now work on the blurb. This is often more difficult for a writer to achieve than a decent story, and gives many of us a headache to end them all.

The blurb is that text the potential reader sees after looking at the cover. It’s on the back cover for when people pick up the print book, and it’s on the book’s Amazon/other store page if it’s published that way. It’s a vital incentive for any interested party to delve further, and usually they will go next to the first page, so that needs to be good too. But that’s another story.

So, how do you go about putting together a blurb? It will be different for everyone, but here’s how I do it, and it’s not always in the same way.

What a blurb is not.

Unknown to some who use all of Amazon’s character spaces, a blurb is not a book’s synopsis. They are even more difficult to write.
A blurb is also not a detailed summary of the plot.
It’s not a review of the book either, nor is it a lengthy report to be turned in to the teacher first thing on Monday morning.

So, what is a book blurb?

It is a short and persuasive sales pitch to potential buyers.
The aim of the blurb is to arouse curiosity and lure the would-be reader towards the cash register.
It is made up of four components, or at least it should be. I’ve seen some run on for a page or more. Therefore, it’s important to keep the word count below 250, maximum.

What are the four components of a blurb?

The pedant in me wants to say, letters, words, punctuation… and it is very important to get them right, but you can’t do that until you have made clear:

* The Hook. The tagline. The impactful few words that stop people scrolling.
* The Main Character. The protagonist, or plural if you have two. No more, though. Two is complicated enough in 250 words.
* The Conflict. There is no drama without conflict, so you need to highlight any change in status quo (not the rock band), and point up what’s at risk, and what’s going to get your potential reader saying, ‘Oh my,’ and reading more.
* The Stakes. The tease. The ‘What if the main character fails?’

What should not be in there?

No spoilers, no plot twists, no backstory because no-one’s interested in that at this point. Nothing fancy to show off your grasp of language, and no subplots, brilliant though they may be.

Right then. How do you put together a blurb?

Well, first, you decide when to write it. Sometimes, I’ve written a blurb before I start on the book. This is a way of keeping yourself in check. You can refer to it as you go, to ensure you keep the four main elements of character, plot, crisis and resolution.
Sometimes, I write it as I am writing the book itself.
More usually for me, I write it after I have finished the draft and before I send it to my proofreader (always a good idea to have your blurb proofed).
During whichever process, the blurb changes as you develop the story, but if you are telling the story you planned, the main elements should always be foremost in your mind. Then, once you’ve got your loins girded and your baldrick slung, you can take on the blurb proper.

Write four paragraphs.

I write out the plot points I want to get across in the blurb, and try to keep the limit at four. I expand those into a load of gobbledegook, but at least everything I want to say is in there. For example:

ONE. The, as yet, off the top of my head blurb for ‘Journeyman Joe’ starts like this:
Spring 1895. In the rural Kent village of Runton, Joe Webster is nearing the end of his blacksmith’s apprenticeship when the churchwarden commissions him to build a traditional casket for the church records. However, it must contain a secret compartment with access known only to them.
Needs work. A lot. But we’ve met Joe; we know where and when and what, and we have the seemingly innocent yet mysterious task. Once worked, this opening should tighten the hook: why a mysterious task? However, there’s no potential conflict. That comes next.

TWO. Then, because this is an MM romance first, and a mystery second, I need to get in the ‘impact’ character; the one who is to stir up Joe’s life, cause the drama (internal and external), while innocently going about his business. This chap’s called Harvey Cade, and it’s important to mention the name only if you are going to use it again in the blurb. Don’t use it once and then call him by his job title, ‘The archdeacon’s investigator’ (or whatever). Consistency is the key, but you can also get in what the character is if necessary. When the archdeacon’s investigator, Harvey Cade, arrives in the village… Job done. Better done by adding a stop! You do this by breaking the rules of British public-school grammar: Never start a sentence with a conjunction. But when the archdeacon’s investigator… We have already seen a more acceptable pause in our reading in the first paragraph with However… (Don’t actually write that ellipsis; it will look tacky.)

THREE. Next comes the conflict, and in this case, it’s more to do with forging an illegal relationship than it is to do with the mysterious box. My current gobbledygook looks like this:
There is much gossip about Joe turning down a girl everyone thought he would marry, and the involvement of Mr Cade and the secret activity of the parish council. Only Joe can unlock the casket and reveal the truth – but he also has to decide his future.
Bare bones need resetting and, in places, fleshed out, but that’s the gist, and it’s more or less all we need for now.

FOUR. The stakes, the tease, the… rest of it. Vital to the story is village gossip, because the stakes here are that two men heading towards same-sex love (and nookie) were completely illegal, not to say shameful, in Britain in 1895. The stakes are obvious, but might need some detail, and as my story takes place at the time of the Oscar Wilde trials, there’s my comparison, because we all know what happened to him. At least, if you don’t, you should go and read up on it.

I also need to leave behind a feeling of what happens next, and how will it all end? You start with a hook, and, similarly, end with one. Or end by adding bait. Remember, your game here is to lure $4.49 from the pockets of the discerning potential reader.

With four paragraphs of probably too detailed nonsense under your baldrick, you can then start editing. This, for me, is the fun part.

But… (I did that on purpose) You must remember to use impact words. Cut down or add in, as long as every word counts, and you have your impactful words.
Joe Webster is keen to pass his apprenticeship. No. Joe Webster must, has no option to, or is desperate to pass, succeed in, get through (no, survive), etc. You see where I am going?
A book blurb should be impactful, yet not made up of smash, bang, wallop, take that, you cad! to the extent we cringe.

It should be short. In fact, start by thinking about those taglines you see with films. My favourite is for Jaws 2: “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.” Or, more appropriately for Journeyman Joe, The Shawshank Redemption: “Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.”

I sometimes use such a tagline atop the blurb. Other times, I use a quote from the book itself. It’s the part when you read it back to yourself that makes you go, ‘Ah ha! That’s what this is about.’

For an example, see Guardians of the Poor, the first in my Larkspur Mysteries. There, I quote the mentor character from the story with: “The greatest gift one man may give another is his trust.”

When you’re editing, chop out anything you think unnecessary to the potential buyer, change words to be more impactful, and if you’re having trouble, just write exactly what you want to say, and then cut it down to what you need to say.
Yes, it is that easy (not), and no, you will never be happy with it. But… (I’ve done it again), the joy of self-publishing is that you can always change it later. Maybe not on the cover, but certainly on the Amazon or wherever page.

Should I use AI to write my blurb?

Only if you want it to sound like every other AI-produced blurb, and get looks down the noses of writers with talent and persistence enough not to resort to asking a computer to do their work.
However, where AI is acceptably useful is in providing ideas. To get a decent result, you need to outline everything you want your blurb to say before you make the request, else all those bot bytes will vomit back all kinds of patronising rubbish. Mind you, you’ve already just done the hard part and summarised your work enough for a computer to understand, so you may as well finish the job yourself. You could ask it to make suggestions of what would be more impactful, but don’t then just steal the text. Take a few impact words, perhaps, but make the sentences your own. If you only copy and paste, you are copying legions of non-writers who churn out computer-generated garbage and call themselves an author. (Do not get me started.)

Instead, I will stop there, and hope this piece will be of use to someone somewhere.
For more of my thoughts on how to write a novel, blurb, and the rest, see the list of previous articles under the Author Tips link in the top menu.

WIP Update: The Journeyman

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It’s been a while, but here I am with a completed first draft of a new novel. Currently, it has the working title of ‘The Journeyman ’ and runs to 135,000 words.

I also have a working logline:

A blacksmith’s apprentice falls in love with another man during the trials of Oscar Wilde while forging a mysterious lockbox.

That is the basic hook, which gives nothing away, but it’s also rather clumsy, and sounds like the apprentice is doing his work in the Central Criminal Court while the trials are taking place. In fact, he lives and works in a small, rural village in Kent, some 60 miles away, and is unaware of the trials and scandal taking place in London. So, I’m still working on that while I continue to work on the manuscript.

Oscar Wilde was in court three times between April 3rd and May 25th, 1895, but the scandal began earlier that year. On February 28th, 1895, the Marquess of Queensberry left an insulting card at Wilde’s club addressed to “Oscar Wilde, posing as a sodomite.” That led to Wilde suing for criminal libel at the Old Bailey. However, facing devastating cross-examination by Edward Carson regarding his writings and relationships with young men, Wilde withdrew the suit, and Queensberry was acquitted. Immediately after, authorities issued a warrant for Wilde’s arrest. The situation for Wilde worsened from then on.

Joe Webster, a 20-year-old blacksmith’s apprentice, is approaching the end of his indenture and hoping to become a Journeyman so he can go ‘tramping’ to find a new job and a better life.

Two things cause upset in his world; a commission to make an unusual iron chest, and a man called Harvey Cade.

And then, there is a death and an inquest…

Wilde is the far-away background to the story, and not what the story is about. I chose the spring of 1895 because it follows on in the timeline from the end of the Delamere Files, although this story has nothing to do with the London characters or stories of the Clearwater, Larkspur, and Delamere mysteries, and is not like those stories at all. There is a mystery, but not one of my usual ‘improbable but possible’ mysteries, and the mystery is not at the heart of ‘The Journeyman.’ The heart of it is about two men falling in love, and a lot of it is to do with village life.

As they say, all will be revealed in time.

For now, I just wanted to keep you informed and let you know I’ve not dropped off the end of the world, and am beavering away in the background. I have some other work to catch up on this week, but after that, I shall be back to the draft and the editing work, improving the MS and thinking of covers and layout. If I can get ahead, I should have this release ready for you sometime in October, so keep an eye on my blog here and on my social media pages. You can find the links in the right-hand sidebar. I will keep you informed about the journey of Journeyman Joe (another possible title).

Promos

Meanwhile, the publicity work continues, and that’s the side of things I’m not very good at. Too busy writing to think about it all, and with no money to pay even a reputable company to do it for me. The best I can do for now is rely on these free promo-shares from BookFunnel, and here’s one that you might like to explore.

LGBTQ+ Books

Genres: Romance / LGBT. The books in this promo have to be romance, but with no erotica, and then it says there must be some heat – so, I assume, they will be low-level-heat romances. I have my three series starters in there, because they are romance/mystery with a little heat.

https://books.bookfunnel.com/lgbtqseptember/cfzik8ay2h

A Thought on Show not Tell

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The new novel is taking shape. I am spending my days writing a story from start to finish with no thought yet for chapter length or book length, and I’m enjoying the freedom and process immensely. I’m also writing a great deal of text that isn’t for the book, but for me, and that is all part of the process.

The first draft is where I tell myself the story. I do this as best as I can without knowing the characters, but as I go through, I discover more about them, and often, more about them than I need. I already have a few pages of discarded description in my ‘Cut’ folder, and far too much other ‘telling’ description in other places. When the first draft is done, and I read back over it, I will take out the excess, leaving in place only what is needed, and improving it if I feel it needs improving. I don’t throw away the cuts, though, because they might be useful somewhere else.

I think many writers become precious about their work, and leave long and unnecessary passages in their books because they don’t want to let them go. ‘I wrote that, it’s lovely, and I like it.’ Fine, but does the story need it? In a lot of cases, no. But in some cases, maybe another story will need it, or maybe you will need part of it for something later. Either way, it’s a good idea to be ruthless, but keep your cuts, because you were obviously trying to say something, so you need to ask yourself why.

For example, in my ‘Cut’ folder for the new book, I have 1,000 words about the impact character, Harvey Cade. He is the archdeacon’s agent, sent from Canterbury to examine the parish registers of a Kent village in what was a regular yearly or five-yearly audit (for want of a better word). That’s his job, but who is he?

I had him riding his bicycle from Canterbury to the village, and while he was doing so, I wittered on about his past, schooling and so on, in a very obvious ‘Tell’ scene.

I am referring to the old saying that you should ‘show, not tell’ in your narrative, though I don’t necessarily agree with that all the way to the finish line. I mean, ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times’ is a famous opening line, and it’s simply telling us information. (A Tale of Two Cities.) Sometimes, this works, and it’s perfectly acceptable, as it was in Dickens ’ case. So why not open with a similar line, like this one from the cut chapter.

Harvey Cade had learnt to be two people, and whichever one he was at any one time was all to do with whose company he was keeping.

Yeah, okay, maybe a little mysterious, but this character trait is something that would be easy to show rather than tell. In fact, Harvey explains that he was brought up in a small village, but went to a public school where he was taught to lose his country accent and behave like a gent. That is all I need to tell the reader. Rather than write, ‘This left him able to talk in two voices and play two characters’, it’s much more rewarding to show him talking one way with a villager and another way with the archdeacon. That shows the reader that he has two different ways of behaving.

The second cut sentence was: This wasn’t a condition brought about by trickery or the desire to mislead, because he was at heart a very un-misleading person, and the original him was still present beneath whatever façade a situation required.

Yeah, yeah, whittering blurb that I should keep to myself. I can show him being a very un-misleading person later in the story. Right now, he’s cycling along a Roman road on his way to a new assignment. Why does the narrator need to tell the reader everything about him in his first scene? Save it for later and drip it out through the story, and if you can, show him being un-misleading through his actions or dialogue.

I’m not going to bleat on about it. I just wanted to get this thought out of my head and onto a page before getting back to chapter 30 of the new book ‘Untitled’, but I am playing around with the idea of ‘Journeyman Joe’, or ‘Apprentice Webster’, because many other suitable titles are already clichés. But titles are another story.

Newsletter
The September newsletter and all its promo ideas will be out on the 5th, so make sure you have signed up by then. Sign up here.

Should a Character Appear on the Cover?

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Here’s a question for you. Should a character from your novel appear on the cover of your book?

A lot of MM Romance books show topless men on the cover. So do a lot of straight romance books, come to that. When I see a guy on a cover, he’s invariably a hunk, put there to attract the eye and draw it towards the blurb, or sometimes, just to draw the viewer to the ‘buy now’ link. The chap can be dressed as a hockey player (yawn), or whatever the subject of the story happens to be, or it might be a couple of guys, but it’s usually an image to represent the main character(s) of the story. Fine. We all do it. I’ve done it a lot, and if they say a face on the cover is what you need to draw a reader to a purchase, then it’s done me well.

But I was wondering, ‘Does seeing the author’s idea of the main character spoil the reader’s enjoyment?’ Does it take away something from their imagination? You are showing them what your main man looks like, and shouldn’t that be up to the writing, and up to the reader to form their own picture from your story?

Let me introduce you to someone else’s view of my main character, Joe Webster, a 20-year-old blacksmith’s apprentice from a small Kent village, in 1895. When I say someone else’s view, I am referring to the free AI, ChatGPT. Before I go further, I want to make it perfectly clear that I only use AI search engines for research, as I’ve stated before. In this case, I used it out of interest to see how my description of a character was interpreted by the AI thing. This image will not appear in or on the books, and this may not be your interpretation of the character(s) when you come to read the book. It’s not exactly my interpretation, either, because all I did was put in some character details such as age, ambition, skills, manner, attitude, etc, and not physical attributes. Here’s what it came up with for my two leads, the main character, Joe Webster, and the impact character, Harvey Cade.

To be fair, seeing this interpretation did give me some inspiration for other physical details, such as pose, attitude and costume, but later, after playing around with other characters and their images, I soon realised that AI is limited, and very often the same character interpretation can have exactly the same attitude about them and be in the same pose. They often have the same facial features too, but changed slightly; so the AI thing is pretty limited in that respect.

But the point of this was to satisfy my curiosity and see my characters ‘brought to life’ in images. It was interesting and even fun, and has been useful, but only to make me question if he really looked like that in my imagination. Should I change my descriptions to fit the image? (No.) Should I give the AI more info and see what happens? (Very similar image, same pose, nothing much changed.) And, should I use this for the cover? (No, because that would take work away from Adnjela, and she is a trained designer.)

I’ve wandered from the point a little, but the questions remain.
Does showing your MC on the cover hamper the reader’s imagination or enhance it?
Has this ‘topless hunk on the cover’ been overdone?
Does it still work for you?

There are plenty of questions on this subject, and I’m only thinking aloud, but while I am doing it, I must confess to finding naughty pleasure in seeing the dreaded AI interpret my descriptions.

As always, you can comment on my posts via my Facebook page.

Promo

This is appropriate. A special promo feature in gay novels that have no AI input at all!

Human Element – AI-Free MM Romance Books

Although AI can be helpful as an advanced search engine for research (with all results double-checked and verified elsewhere), most of us proper authors are totally against it producing texts.

This collection of 33 + MM romance titles has no AI-written rubbish!

https://books.bookfunnel.com/humanelement/2f5vpuwd2o

Unforgivable Giveaway

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This week, I have something entirely different for you. I am so absorbed in the writing of ‘Lockbox’ (working title), that I have little time for anything else, so I thought I would talk about Miss P.
Who?
Miss P is the central character, the protagonist, in ‘Remotely’, a comedy, gay/straight body-swap novel I wrote ten years ago. This novel pokes fun at TV reality talent shows, while telling of the mending of a friendship between an out gay guy and a very much out straight guy, both 18, and friends since childhood until something happened.

Miss P is a magical, timeless person of all ages who is sent by a higher power to right the wrong and put the friendship back on track in time for the finale of the hit TV show, ‘So You Think We’re Remotely Interested?’
You can read the blurb and find the book here: Remotely, James Collins, on Amazon Kindle, KU and paperback.

‘Unforgivable!’
This is the title of a second Miss P book I was working on but which I never finished. This one was to be set in the world of the West End musical and poked fun at certain mammoth composers of ‘coach party musicals’, the Disney take-over, and other London theatre matters. Another farce, it was to concern a struggling young musician vs the country’s most popular composer of musicals. (With a gay love story in there too, of course, and a house full of eccentric characters.) As I was writing it, I became sidetracked by writing some MM romance, and then some Victorian mystery series, so it never developed.

However, with nothing else to let you read or tell you right now, I thought I’d let you have the first (rather busy) chapter for free, unedited. It’s in a different style to my recent Jackson books, but might give you something to digest over breakfast.
Here’s the link to the first chapter in PDF format, which you can read online or download and save.

Unforgivable by James Collins, Chapter OneDownload

Don’t forget, you can also read another Miss P story, the novella, ‘Honestly’, for free, right here: Honestly.

Have fun reading. I am now going back to ‘Lockbox’ and 1895. I’ll bring you more news on that very soon…

Human Element – AI-Free MM Romance Books

Although AI can be helpful as an advanced search engine for research (with all results double-checked and verified elsewhere), most of us proper authors are totally against it producing texts.

This collection of 33 + MM romance titles has no AI-written rubbish! https://books.bookfunnel.com/humanelement/2f5vpuwd2o

Starting on a New Novel

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I thought it high time for a blog post, as I’ve not blogged for a while. I know, I know… Who keeps a blog these days? I do! I’m not an Insta-pouter, nor do I want to be a Tick-Tack influencer, and I don’t go around enthusing into a phone in the hope of drawing in thousands of dollars from people with nothing better to do. Why, I only really use BlueSky to post promos and see what the writing world there is up to – yet why do I end up with what I don’t want to see? For example: people of other countries swimming in clinging underwear, or discovering men peeing behind a tree, people falling over and everyone laughing, and demonstrations on how to wrap a cat in a box… Is it any wonder the world is dumbing down?

Anyway… Forcing myself away from all that, I shall remain blogging here with my thoughts and updates on my books, so let’s get to that…

First: the Three Clearwater series is/are finished. (‘Series’ is one of those English words that has no plural, like ‘sheep’ or ‘dozen.) This leaves me free to move on to something new while trying to publicise the arse out of the existing books – and without being an Insta-pouter or a Tacky-Tick twink, how do I do that?

The new novel is titled ‘Untitled’ at the moment, because all the suitable titles are either over-used or simply naff, so I am waiting for the right one to fall into place.

I am currently about 58,000 words into the first draft, and although I have a sketched plan for the story’s progression, I am allowing myself the pleasure of forgetting about it and simply writing. I am letting the characters develop on their own (none of that endless background preparation for me!), and that’s working successfully. I mean, I have some basic facts, but in terms of dialogue and what comes out of their mouths, that’s up to them. I will edit later, of course.

Is it a mystery? Not really, although there is a mystery and possibly a death (accident or natural), and my two main characters are involved in that, but this will not be another Clearwater, Larkspur or Delamere mystery-based story with a dramatic climax. It is, essentially, a story of finding love and keeping secrets.

When is it set? Spring of 1895. The Oscar Wilde trials are taking place in the background, but bear no immediate relevance to my characters – except for what the final verdict meant to other gay men.

Where is it set? Mostly, seven miles south of Canterbury, Kent, in a fictional village that is based on others around it on the Kentish Downs.

Any pictures? It’s far too early for covers, but I have been using Chatgpt to produce images for my amusement. These will not be used in the final book! I only use AI for deep research (which I then verify with books and learned articles), but in order to make it worthwhile for you visiting this blog, I will put some up as I go. The only danger of this is that you get an image in your head of the main characters which may not accord with what you imagine when you read the book, but as that is months away yet, it shouldn’t matter.

I’ll start by leaving you with an image of a character that the computer came up with based on my description. Below that is a link to one of this month’s worthy promos if you’d also like to take a click and boost my kudos, and hopefully, find some new reading along the way. Meanwhile, meet Josiah Bell, widower and churchwarden of the parish of Runton in 1895.

Some recommended reading

I have a top suggestion for you, and several promo lists offering all manner of indie reading, MM romance, mystery, thriller and biographies, so let’s start with this, from Sue Brown.

Sue Brown is a Londoner with a dream to live on a small island. Coffee fuels her addiction to writing romance with hot guys loving each other, and her Adorkadog snores in harmony as she creates.

Island Detective, by Sue Brown

With a new job as a private detective on a small island, Olaf has everything he’s dreamed of. A life as an openly gay man, a partner who adores every fuzzy hair on his body, and his adopted family and friends who love him. So why does he feel something is still missing?

Read the full blurb and find the book here: Island Detective.

You can also join her newsletter and follow Sue’s news, plans, and stories.
Newsletter – http://bit.ly/SueBrownNews

A Friday Gallery

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[This post was meant to go up on my personal site, www.symidream.com, but I put it here by mistake, then deleted the photos from my PC, realised what I’d done and… Well, why not share it with my readers here, and link to it from my other site over there? Sorry about that, but here we are!]

I was thinking of fun and positive things on which to end the week, and came up with the idea of another little gallery of photos, both recent and from the last couple of years. Before that, though, I wanted to draw your attention to a free eBook, should you fancy finding out what my book blathering is all about. I’ve just finished a series of 12 novels, all mysteries, starting in June 1892 and finishing in June 1894. They are ongoing, in that characters remain and develop, so they are all linked in that way, and they are mainly set in London. (One takes us to Suffolk.)

If you want to take a free gander, you need to sign up to my newsletter before the end of the month, and as long as the ‘system’ works as it should do, you will get a link to where you can download a generic EPUB file. This, you should then be able to add to your preferred reading device, such as your Kindle. I’ve not done this before, but I am assured it is quite simple. (If you have problems, an online search will reveal how.)

To find out more about the series, click here.

To subscribe to my author’s once-a-month newsletter, click here, follow the instructions, and then verify the email you should receive afterwards. You can unsubscribe at any time, and it cost nothing.

As Tony Hart used to say and sign on Vision On, ‘And now for the gallery.’

Free First in Series Giveaway

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Free First in Series Giveaway

If you sign up to my newsletter by July 31st, you will receive in the newsletter on August 1st, a link to a free download of ‘Finding a Way’, the Delamere Files book one.* I am doing this to celebrate the end of the 12-book series and the publication of ‘The Delamere Dilemma.’

The newsletter will also be promoting Island Detective, a novel by Sue Brown, and she’s giving away the first of it free to anyone who joins her newsletter. There will also be some other great promos with lots of reading you might want to consider. Sign up here (and remember to verify your email address afterwards). It’s free, and once a month only, so no spam.

The Delamere Dilemma

The first review is in, and phew! It’s a five-star.

There was a funny moment in the preparation of this book. I had found an image of a young lad who looked like my imagined Ronny Felman, the foul-mouthed but lovable youngest of the Delamere family (who has his moment in ‘Dilemma’), and I was going to use that for the character illustration. That is, until someone pointed out that it was a photo of Winston Churchill when he was a boy! Wikimedia Commons didn’t tell me that, so that was almost an ‘Oops!’ moment. There is now a double portrait of Ronny and Simeon in the front matter of the novel.

Full review and book page here.

The review also said, “I hope this is not the last we learn of the Delamere men.” Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but for now, I am working on something slightly different. A historical novel set in the Kent countryside in the spring of 1895. It’s to be mainly a slow-burn love story between two men out in the countryside, while in the background, the Oscar Wilde trials are taking place, seemingly a million miles away from rural village life. There is also a mystery, but that is secondary to the relationship between the two main players, a blacksmith and an ecclesiastical archivist.

No title as yet, but 80 + pages of notes, character work, plotting, historical research and the rest, and I am about to start on the first draft of chapter four this morning.

Meanwhile, don’t forget to sign up for news in my monthly newsletter, and claim at least one free eBook.

* The link is to a download of an EPUB file that you can then open in your Kindle, Kobo or whatever. This is the first time I have done this, so I hope it works!

Eight Deviant Years

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Eight years ago, in 2018, I decided I wanted to write a story based around the infamous East End murders of 1888, and ‘Jack the Ripper.’ Wheat came out was ‘Deviant Desire,’ and as I’ve mentioned before, this was meant to be a standalone book. However, it clearly wasn’t, because it led to another 29 full-length novels over three series. The world I’d created grew organically from one book to the next, keeping to its own rules, and, in my opinion, with the writing style improving in confidence all the time. The entire collection of novels and related publications amounts to well over 3,000,000 words, and most of them are spelt correctly.

Along the way, we met a large cast of characters, some of whom survived all the way through. Although they didn’t necessarily play parts in every book, they continued to exist in what became known as the Clearwater World. They still do, even though ‘Deviant Desire’ led to a 10-book Clearwater series, which led to a seven-book Larkspur series, which then led to the 12-book Delamere series.

A few weeks ago, I prepared myself to say farewell to this world and its cast. Reaching the end of ‘The Delamere Dilemma’ was like waving off a train taking friends and family to further pastures, perhaps never to be seen again. Still, that’s what had to be done, for I was worried that if I carried on in the same vein for much longer, the stories would become samey.

So, here we are at the end of the Clearwater, Larkspur and Delamere journey, and the entire set of 30 novels and three side-novels/collections is all done, and I can (and have) started on something new. Thank you for your support so far.

If you missed the announcement, ‘The Delamere Dilemma’ is now published in the usual formats, Kindle, KU and paperback.

What’s Next?

Those who know me won’t be surprised to learn that I have already started on something new, but it is something completely different. A mystery, yes, but that is the subplot, not the main story. That is to be a character-focused love story set in the Kent countryside in 1895, so it is still a historical MM romance mystery. I am currently working on ways to make the narration authentic to the time and place, and will come back to you in the future for your opinion on the style as I start writing.

Also along the way, I will continue to promote my indie author promos as I do, and will continue to send out my monthly newsletter, and attend to this blog each week, so no change there.

As I always say: keep reading, and I’ll keep writing.

Developing Stories with AI

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Don’t panic! There is no way I would use AI to write a word of a story for me. However, I was interested to see how ChatGPT might be used as a story development tool. So, I set out the basic idea for a novel, and started asking it questions as I would a human development editor.

I started by asking for a simple timeline of the Oscar Wilde trials of 1895, and sure enough, it came back with the right dates and a precis of what was happening on each one. Useful, and when I double checked, also accurate. However, I immediately noticed something else creeping in: AI’s enthusiasm to go further than requested. Along with the dates and events came a set of thoughts on why the trials were significant. I’d not asked for this (and I already knew), but I thought, ‘Well, that’s handy too.’ I then asked it how this might be used as the background for a Delamere Files story, not that that was what I was intending; I was simply interested.

ChatGPT then spewed out a long list of ideas, which some might have found helpful, and gave me three options it thought were viable. However, again, it went beyond what I had asked without me asking it to, and came up with ideas for twists, parallels to the present, and even titles. Again, some people might think this is a good idea, but for me, what it was doing was moving the creativity from me to itself. Noticing this, I asked some more general questions about that year in history, and again, received lots of facts, which, if I had used them, I would have double checked with educated sources, as I do. i.e., books and articles written by academics, newspapers of the time, etc.

This background extended searching is fine, because it is nothing more than an in-depth version of Google, though even there, I treat results with caution because paying advertisers get top billing, and are what the AI thinks I want, not what I actually want.

AI takes over the creative process.

My conclusion was that it was fine to use this thing for such research, or for generating ideas, and it was/is helpful in some respects, but something started to worry me, and that was the way it was starting to take over.

Actually, there were a few things that I found ‘creepy’, for want of a better word.

1. After a few suggestions, it added: ‘This is the one I think best fits your novel,’ as a story editor might do, but I had not asked it for its opinion.

2. I asked a simple character question, such as? What makes him laugh? And the answer that came back was an enthusiastic, ‘This is a wonderful question…’ which I found mildly patronising.

3. A little later: ‘I’d make Tom laugh at small acts of rebellion…’, it said. To which I replied (to myself), I don’t care what you would do, I am writing this treatment, not you.

There were more of these opinions, ‘I’d actually rephrase the question…’ as though I didn’t know how to ask one. ‘This would be top of my list…’ It created an idea and then said of it, ‘This is wonderfully specific.’ ‘One thought that excites me…’ and so on, replying with great effulgence to every question I posed in the manner of someone trying too hard to be sycophantic, which it was. Horrible, in my opinion.

4. ‘If I could only persuade you of one thing, it would be this…’ By then, I was starting to get the feeling that what I was working on was not my idea anymore, but that of the AI, and had I been a less experienced writer, I might have simply agreed with it, keen to get to the part where I could start writing. It was not to be. I asked another simple question about people’s habits – a list of signs to show when someone is nervous, angry, etc., and off we went with another patronising ‘I love this level of detail…’

I don’t care what you love (how can a machine love?), all I wanted was a list of habitual traits.

And so it went on, leaving me with some impressions:

A writer must learn to control AI.

Yes, ChatGPT can be useful for in-depth research (but always check results).
Yes, it can act as a sounding board.
Yes, it can be helpful when you want such a discussion.

But what worries me is that it was heading towards things like, ‘If you like, I can suggest this… and that… and shall I draw you a map, or a chart, and fill in the blanks for you…’ Which, it seems, could easily lead to the final: ‘Would you like me to write a sample page/chapter for you?’ I didn’t allow it to go that far, but the fact that I had to restrain it was a concern.

I can see how it would be so easy for anyone who picks up on the idea that they can become a ‘published author’ by teatime simply by giving AI a prompt. ‘Write me an 80,000-word MM Romance about Hockey Players.’

It does so (badly, in my opinion).
The ‘author’ doesn’t even read it.
‘Make me a cover and set out the book… Tell me how to upload it to wherever…’ Yay! I am now a published author.
‘AI: Would you like me to write a sequel?’

Where is the creativity in AI?

I think what I am trying to say is that, in this experience, AI was keen to patronise me to keep me happy. It was leading me towards using it for its own ideas under the guise of developing mine. It had its own opinions about what I should write, and then went on to lead the way – thereby removing all creativity from me and reducing me to the role of decision maker only.

Where is the novelty? Where is the creativity that would make my work stand out from anyone else’s? Where is the author’s voice in all of this, his style, tone, humour, quirks, originality?

How easy it would be to get the thing (through, I guess, some kind of paid subscription), to write my next book for me in its entirety? It would be simple, and the results would be exactly the same as everyone else’s. Bland. Produced by logic, not creativity. Not only do I find that a horrible idea, but I also find it worrying for the future of literature.

It has opinions, it leads conversations, it tells you what it would do, it has a ‘voice’ that persuades the innocent towards its own ends, and it wants to do the job for you in the name of helpfulness. And, another nasty point, it began telling me how I should set my ideas out as though I was writing a series for TV, or a ‘movie’ (film, in our language), and not a novel. Why? Because that is where the money lies, and AI is all about making money, though not always for those who need to make it.

A novel should be just that: novel.

Does anyone else find any of this a concern?

(Ps: I got the same programme to produce the banner for this piece, because I wanted to be ironic.)