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Friday Five - Five Fun Things About Writing and Publishing Shadows of Twilight by Martin Sharlow


Martin Sharlow was always a storyteller. In his youth he used to play roleplaying games and usually he was the game master. That allowed him to create and modify stories and then tell them to his captive audience in the form of a game. Because of this and the many fantasy books he read, Martin went the next step and started writing fantasy novels.

Recently, however, Martin changed genres to vampire romance as he got bitten by the vampire bug. This happened after picking up one of the latest novels and finding himself hooked on it. Today Martin has written three vampire romance novels, and is in the process of writing many more.

Martin currently lives in Vancouver, WA with two of his three children, who help to keep him grounded in reality.

You can visit Martin Sharlow at http://www.wix.com/targoun/martin


Visit Martin’s tour page at Pump Up Your Book.



Friday Five - Five Fun Things About Writing and Publishing Shades of Twilight


Shades of Twilight came into being after I got bitten by the vampire bug. Before that time, all I read was fantasy. A fellow author wrote something that everyone thought was great. It wasn't in my normal genre, but I decided to check it out anyway just to see what all the hoopla was about. To my surprise, not only did I finish her book, but the next two as well. I then went on to watch several movies and TV shows on the subject, and then I knew I just had to write a vampire novel. When things perk my interest I have a hard time not taking the plunge. Shades is the result of that interest.


Shades was written in the first person point of view. This was my first attempt to ever write that way. Normally I write in third person, as most of the fantasy books I've read are written like that. To my surprise, this was the hardest book I ever wrote because of that one little change. It's crazy how difficult it was for me.

As difficult as it was to write, I actually found that the first person POV was actually more fun and versatile to use. It feels like a different skill type to write that way, and I have great respect for authors that can write in multiple POVs. I'm looking forward to writing the sequel, as I'm going to enjoy exploring all I can do with first person.

When I began this book, I only had my characters picked out. Usually I have a plot long before I have my main characters done. They usually grew out of the storyline, rather than the other way around. Not this time, and that caused a whole new set of problems for me. Rather than have a goal that needed doing or fixing and then creating characters, I had characters that needed goals. That coupled with the POV problem...Well let's just say this project was a challenge I wasn't expecting.

Some of the action scenes were were my favorite to write. The scenes where Melissa is scared to death at all the strange noises on her street outside as she makes her way home really creeped me out. I remember feeling like I was actually there. It helped that I had went down to the street at night and saw how spooky it could be. The park where they encounter supernatural events at also has a reputation of being haunted in real life. We went down there for research, and I'll tell you now, it definitely left an impression on me.

Comments

  1. Martin, thanks for stopping by on your book tour.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your welcome, and I thank you for having me. =)

    Martin

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great post! Vampire novels are all the rage and this sounds like a perfect fit! I have added it to my wish list and hope to get a chance to read it very soon!

    ReplyDelete

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