Thursday 24 March 2016

'The Grave Concerns of Jennifer Lloyd' can now be pre-ordered from Amazon

An exciting day today. My upcoming mystery thriller, 'The Grave Concerns of Jennifer Lloyd, has just appeared on Amazon. Fullest details are on Amazon.com but it is also visible on most other sites including Amazon.co.uk. So it shouldn't be many days before you see stock available. The Amazon sites allow you to pre-order. They email you when it is available and only take your cash then. So if you want a copy, get your order in now: and that will expedite them getting in the stock and will mean a quicker delivery.

I can't wait for you to meet Jennifer Lloyd. She's been my preserve for far too long now. A constant companion.

To find out more about this novel, read pre-pub reviews, etc, vist my website at: www.iankingsley.com/books/jennifer-lloyd/.

If you enjoy reading this novel - and I've put a lot of effort into trying to deliver something entertaining and unusual - then please post an Amazon review afterwards. That would not only be very kind - it would be very helpful! I don't have a big publisher behind me - just an Indie - so your endorsement is the best kind of promotion I can hope for. Thank you so much!


Wednesday 23 March 2016

When A Character Takes Over!

My third novel, a mystery thriller called The Grave Concerns of Jennifer Lloyd, was the most unusual writing experience I have ever had, and that's after decades of writing one thing or another - and of making a living out of writing. Why?

Firstly, it is first-person, from a woman's pont-of-view (POV). Yes, I have always been comfortable with scenes having female POV - although male is first choice, where this works best. But I have never before had the notion of using a female narrator for an entire book. (Thankfully, a female reviewer of 'Grave Concerns' said I created a 'charming young woman'. So that was a relief. Although, I should say, she is far from charming when push comes to shove!)

But even that wasn't the reason this was my most unusual writing experience. The reason is that Jen -  yes the titular Jennifer Lloyd - came into my mind fully-formed right from the  outset of the story idea. More than that, she virtually dictated the direct manner she wanted to be presented on the page. She comes from a broken background and is short of friends, and she wanted the reader to be her friend: a confidant to whom she can relate, speak, joke.

I could have tamed her, stood back and controlled her, pushed her around via third-person, but it is a real gift when a character comes to the fore like this, so I went with it. It proved to be a delightful experience, and it led to a great depth of  character.

Normally a novelist gets to know their characters gradually, as a novel progresses, so this really was unusual. My first (failed) attempts at writing novels when I was a teenager were beset by cardboard characters. I was plagued by not knowing how to make them seem real. In those days it seemed as if Sherlock Holmes' style observations - characteristations of a man with a limp, poor eyesight, and worse - were the things which distinguished character, but how wrong I was. I now know that it is their psyche which characterises them: how they think, what the want, what has moulded them...

I now like to allow my readers to peep into their heads to understand what makes them tick - or, at least, figure it out from their behaviour and dialogue. I believe each novel has taught me a little more about achieving this, and 'Grave Concerns', and the deep knowledge I had of its protagonist, feels like an achievement because of the intimiate involvement I had with its lead character.

When you boil it all down, you could say its all due to experience. But I think it's something more than that. It is a case of understanding how to understand (your characters)!