Kevin Sterling on The Quandary of Sex in Mainstream Novels @KSterlingWriter #AmWriting #Thriller

It wasn’t originally my idea to include sex in my books. In fact, the thought didn’t even occur to me when I initially became serious about writing. Instead, it was the first editor I worked with roughly two decades ago who told me the novel I had written would be so much better with sex. I resisted the idea at first, but eventually succumbed to his advice. And you know what? He was right.

I locked away that particular book in a virtual drawer long ago, probably never to be seen again, but not before I discovered the sex scenes brought so much life, passion and intimacy to the characters, not to mention richness to the experiences they were going through. And it transformed my thoughts about sex in mainstream novels.

I am often quoted for saying that sex is the most emotionally charged part of our lives, so living it through a book character completes the window into his or her soul. And, when you add those exhilarating scenes to the suspense and intrigue of an action thriller, you kick the reader’s experience to a new level and connect with all of his or her sensibilities.

The problem is that sex, particularly in American society, can be a taboo subject. Perhaps that makes the experience of it in a book more titillating, hence the tremendous success of Fifty Shades of Grey. But it also pushes a large number of readers away.

I have a friend who often says a line when he introduces me to other people: “This is my friend, Kevin. He writes porn.” My friend is just kidding around, of course. But for some people, that’s not too far off the mark. They will overlook the fact that my novels are primarily about action, mystery and suspense, and fixate on the erotica, believing that it’s the true, underlying focus of the book. They just can’t see it any other way.

Then why, you may ask, do I include sex at all? Why would I voluntarily alienate a sizable cross-section of readers who would otherwise enjoy my geopolitical intrigue, espionage, exotic locales, international cuisine, wine, cars, existentialist philosophy, and sarcastic humor?

Because I want my books to touch every corner of the reader’s body and soul, making their reading experience complete and delicious. And if that makes some people uncomfortable, I have to respect their feelings and let it go. I can’t let the prospect of lost sales dictate my craft.

But you want to know what’s really exciting? The knowledge that there are people out there who are on the verge of breaking through their inhibitions and will serendipitously find themselves ready to feel the whole gamut of sensual experiences while holding a Jack Lazar novel in their hands. Can you imagine the rush, the shock, and the rapid heartbeats as they try to process those steamy scenes along with action and suspense of the rest of the story?

I’ve received messages of gratitude from people who’ve experience exactly that, and I can’t tell you how rewarding it is to know I’ve touched them in such a meaningful way. That, more than anything, makes me want to write books for the rest of my life.

Nevertheless, everyone has different thoughts on this subject, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But for me, it’s safe to say I’m on board with putting sex in my novels, and I doubt I’ll ever turn back.

Happy reading, writing and…heavy breathing.

"James Bond Meets Fifty Shades of Grey"

Immerse yourself in the world class novels that combine action, mystery & suspense with tantalizing and tastefully written erotica. You’ll find all your sensibilities roused at once with Kevin Sterling’s ultra-sexy, action-packed Jack Lazar Series.

In this fourth action-packed thriller, Jack travels to Denmark for a business venture, but what seems to be a textbook transaction turns into a nightmare after he gets involved with Katarina, a vivacious Danish girl who apparently lacks a moral compass, not to mention an off button. After naively believing their liaison was just a random encounter, Jack discovers she’s connected to his business deal, and there’s a dangerous political group with skin in the game, too.

Katarina makes a convincing case of being a victim, not part of the conspiracy, but can Jack really trust her?

The firestorm gets out of control as Jack digs deeper, unearths the convoluted plot behind it all, and discovers that innocent people are being heartlessly killed. He’s not only horrified by the reason why it’s happening, but how it’s being done, and there appears to be no way to stop it from occurring again.

Then the scheme’s real objective emerges, launching Jack into action with intelligence operatives to prevent it. But that’s not so easy with assassins on Jack’s tail, forcing him to struggle for survival while trying to prevent Katarina from getting caught in the crossfire.

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Genre – Action, Mystery, Suspense

Rating – R

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Will Shakespeare & the Ships of Solomon by @GreyAuthor #GoodReads #Action #Adventure

Cherry pipe tobacco filled his mouth, and he fought the urge to inhale. Only savor the flavor and let it out, he mused. Reclined on a very comfortable seat, Adams allowed himself a scotch as they entered the city. New York’s skyline loomed above a thick morning fog. The streets were already cluttered with cars and workers. The skyline was close; they would soon be in Manhattan, minutes from Grand Central Station. Sipping the scotch brought him comfort, briefly anyway. More than he’d received in quite some time.

Glancing over at the men, he offered a grin.

“Almost there, gentlemen.”

They were not amused.

“The Barrister put me in charge. These are his orders. What else do you want from me?”

One man looked away, but another maintained his cold stare.

“If this is true, then you have nothing to be nervous about.”

“Why wouldn’t it be true?” Adams smiled, but inside his nerves jumped.

He knew full well that he’d stolen the men from the Barrister, and he’d be hunted down for this, but he needed them, and he had better protection with them around—more effective than even the Vatican. The man he answered to could destroy these men with a single thought. They were only tools to reach the most valuable treasure in the history of man. With that power in his hands, even the Jesuits would shine his shoes at his request.

His nerves softened as he thought about his future. They wouldn’t be soft for long. One of the men jumped to his feet to look out the window. Adams thought his name was Christopher or one of the other saints. Hell, they were all named after saints except for the Barrister, who kept his secular nickname for intimidation.

“God help us,” he said.

Although his nerves were heightened, Adams didn’t want to know what Christopher had seen. Nevertheless, he casually leaned forward and took a look out the window. All composure suddenly crashed, and Adams dropped his pipe as he lurched to his feet. The last car of the train was sitting stationary on the tracks, far behind the moving train.

Without a word, he pulled out his pistol and bolted for the door. A cleverer member of his party immediately jumped up and pulled the emergency brake on the train. Horrific screeching bounded through the air as the occupants of the car tumbled onto each other. The surrounding city stopped to look. Many cars pulled over, passengers stepping out to see what the emergency was, and passersby ran up to the rail.

After he regained balance, Adams nearly lost it again. The train was curved enough on the track to allow them a very clear view of the last car. The back of the train had just exploded from the impact of a sedan parked inside. The sedan crashed onto the rail and squealed off into the city.

“DAMN IT!” Adams barked and squeezed his way off the passenger car in search of his own vehicle.

It was the last time he’d underestimate Will Shakespeare.

In the fall of 1947, Will Shakespeare saw the world collapse around him. Shakespeare, a secret soldier for the Knights Templar, barely escapes the slaughter of his entire knighthood at the hands of a rogue militant arm of the Vatican in a small Montreal church. With orders to escort Templar business associate Dorothy Wilkinson back to her home in Bermuda, Will must locate and rescue the most important secret treasure in human history before it is devoured by a hurricane in the watery caves beneath her father’s property. The spiraling quest sends Will and Dorothy into uncovering dark secrets that make up the origins of the knighthood as they confront the traps and puzzles that masterfully protect the world’s most coveted treasure.

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Genre – Action, Adventure

Rating – PG

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Richard Parry Says No Plan Survives Contact With The Enemy @TactualRain #WriteTip #AmWriting

No plan survives contact with the enemy, but plans are really useful anyway.

The thing is, my writing tends to be pretty organic.  The conversations my characters have aren’t manufactured through some formula.  The path the story takes?  It’s not set in stone.  I tend to outline just enough to give me a path to follow, maybe some high points to hit, and then write.

The outlines I write are more detailed at the start of the story, and less so at the end — often having a single outline point like, “Hero saves the world.”  I mean, that’s enough: it says everything it needs to say.

Making characters real means you need to allow them some flex in their interactions.  If you need John to get that cat out of the tree, but it’s more fun or interesting to have the cat escape from him instead, you’re kind of screwed if your whole story revolves around him returning to Andy with the cat.

The better writing gets lost in service to the outline you’ve drafted, and that’s not okay.

Different writers have different views on this, and I think that’s great.  I’m not trying to tell people that there’s only one way to tell a story — I’m saying that when I write stories, I try and make sure there’s room for my characters to grow through that story.  After you’ve spent 100,000 words with someone, they’re a lot more real than they were on page one, right?

When I wrote Night’s Favour, the basic outline — hand drawn in blue pen — was on a page of my notebook, and some supplementary pages for specific scenes.  Writing Upgrade, a more complex story, I’ve needed to bust out Scapple to do a quick A4 on the moving parts.  There’s lines everywhere.

Funny thing is, both stories diverged from the originally planned ending.  It’s meant more work for me in terms of the writing, but it makes me happier with the end result.  I’d rather the end show a believable outcome for my characters than keeping to an outline that was started months — if not years — ago.

Outlines are great, but like the rest of what I write, they’re disposable in favour of the better story.  To make things better, you sometimes need to throw your initial thoughts into the trash.

Valentine’s an ordinary guy with ordinary problems. His boss is an asshole. He’s an alcoholic. And he’s getting that middle age spread just a bit too early. One night — the one night he can’t remember — changes everything. What happened at the popular downtown bar, The Elephant Blues? Why is Biomne, the largest pharmaceutical company in the world, so interested in him — and the virus he carries? How is he getting stronger, faster, and more fit? And what’s the connection between Valentine and the criminally insane Russian, Volk?

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Genre – Action, Thriller, Urban Fantasy

Rating – R16

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Website http://www.rage.net.nz

Kevin Sterling's #WriteTip On An Outline Doesn’t Have to Handcuff Your #Story @ksterlingwriter

An Outline Doesn’t Have to Handcuff Your Story

There are so many different schools of thought about outlines. Some famous authors say they never write a book without one, and others will tell you they simply sit at their desk with a general plot idea and just start typing, allowing the story to follow its natural course.

I believe a compromise is the right way to go.

An outline has two primary purposes. The first, quite obviously, is to give the author a roadmap for writing the story, thereby preventing the possibility of conflicts, the likelihood of which becomes greater when the book has a complex plot and/or our main character is solving a mystery. The second purpose of an outline is to remind us exactly where we are, which becomes increasingly more helpful as we’re writing the latter parts of a book.

The biggest mistake I think many people make with an outline is thinking they have to relentlessly stick to it. The magic of writing a great novel is letting the story create itself, hence why many writers don’t use outlines at all, so we can’t let an outline handcuff our story. Instead, we should use it as an initial roadmap subject to change at any time. It provides a clear direction to start, thereby allowing us to hit the ground running, but gives us the latitude to take the scenic route or change our destination entirely if that’s where the story and our characters want to go.

But here’s where I think things can really go awry, and I found out the hard way with my first two novels. If the story takes a turn, even if it’s just a small one, the result can be a domino effect that destroys the original storyline, renders the outline unusable, and may even conflict with the chapters we’ve already written. But what do most of us do? We jot down notes to fix these things later and keep on trucking because we’re all fired up about our new storyline and can’t wait to get it all down.

My advice? Call a time out. If we press forward and let this new direction take over without keeping everything in line, the manuscript will turn into a convoluted, mind-numbing mess that will take forever to fix, assuming we don’t give up on the project entirely and metaphorically throw it into the nearest trash dumpster.

It is rare for me to go an entire day without some sort of story alteration. But before I’m done for the evening, I do three things, regardless of how late I have to work to accomplish them. First, I fix everything in the book – past chapters and all – that may have been impacted by the latest change. Second, I edit the outline to make sure it ties perfectly with the manuscript as it now stands. And third, I alter the description of all future chapters in the outline to correspond with the altered storyline. That way, when I pick up the book again, whether it’s the next day or two weeks from now, the entire project is tight and clear, I can remind myself of exactly where I am, and I can keep working without any risk of driving myself into a dreadful mess.

Being an artist and disciplining our work practices seem counterintuitive at times. But when we successfully balance the two, the creative process is so much more enjoyable and fulfilling.

Happy writing!

The Jack Lazar Series has it all from mystery and suspense to action, humor and romance

Jack heads to Egypt to investigate a crash-landed World War II fighter plane that was recently discovered in the middle of the Sahara. But something remarkable was left onboard, and people will stop at nothing to possess it.

An Egyptian Girl with Blue Eyes? Just Stunning.

But Jack soon finds himself in the middle of a hornet's nest as he becomes enthralled with Dalia, an exquisite woman of Egyptian and English descent whose father is the Egyptian Head Consul to the UK, not to mention a formidable ex-agent with the Mukhabarat. The man's skills and weapons come in handy as he and Jack join forces to battle a faction that has plans to kill millions of innocent people and subject the world to their twisted ideologies.

A Race Against Time

The trail leads to Northern Europe as all hell breaks loose. And before long, it's up to Jack and Jack alone to cheat death as he struggles to save Dalia, her father, and scores of unsuspecting people from the plot of a deranged madman.

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Genre – Action, Mystery, Suspense

Rating – R

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