UPDATE ON ORIGINAL SIN CITY SAMPLER FREE EBOOK GIVEAWAY ON AMAZON

The "Original Sin City Sampler" has been ranking in Amazon's Top 10 of the Mystery Best Seller Free list for the last two days! It's been as high as #4 on the Noir list!
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FLA8KN8

There's just one day late to this giveaway!

FREE EBOOK SAMPLER

Starting today, October 23rd and through October 25th, samples of our hard boiled crime fiction ebook novels are available on Amazon for FREE!

"Original Sin City 20,000 Word Sampler" contains the first 9 chapters of our Barry Award Nominated novel "Little Mexico" and the first 3 chapters of its sequel "In the Name of the Father." 

We hope that if you enjoy having a taste of our storytelling, you will buy the complete novels. Only $3.99 each.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FLA8KN8

ON WRITING STORIES

I am hundreds of miles away from my home in Kentucky, working at an animation studio in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This is the job that is paying most of our bills. For the past 14 months, I have been working away from home for stretches of six weeks at a time.

This separation from Cathie puts a damper on our daily collaboration. No matter how much time we spend on the phone or Skype, it's not the same as being next to a warm body. We work best when we are together in one room, bouncing ideas off each other...challenging one another...and then, kissing and making up.

Fortunately, we are at the stage on our present writing project where I concentrate on the basic structure of the story. Our Original Sin City novels each have a basic historical event, theme, and major plot through which multiple character story arcs are woven. This enables us to present a textured reading experience.

In essence, our novels are multiple novellas that are interwoven.

For the past week, I've been pulling together the first novella's three act structure. I'll use this structure for all the novellas. It enables us to control the pacing of the novel's overall story arc.

This is exactly how I plan my animation—I plant guideposts to hit. I then time my actions and create my individual drawings/words/sentences.

In both cases, I give the characters (drawn and verbally created) room to organically grow. Hopefully, the result will surprise the audience with the reality of the world we've created.

Check out our 3 Act Structure Outline.

Act One
Setup: Location/Relationships
1) What character wants/goals:
a) Start in the middle of struggle
b) Emotional need/want: hate, love, jealousy, respect from others
c) Physical need/want: hunger for sex, money, food, shelter

2) What's in the way:
a) Other person(s)
b) Self--lack of talent, knowledge, common sense, impatience, arrogance, self delusion
c) Confrontation

Act Two

3) Tries to overcome obstacles
a) Initiates personal actions towards goal(s)
b) Family members attempt to thwart success--ratchets up the negative feelings--feeds the desire for revenge
c) Outside opportunity from 3rd party appears
d) Tries to grab for it


Act Three
4) Climax
a) Confrontation between all involved
5) Resolution: Success/Failure
Points to future conflicts (both external and external)

For those who want to see how we interweave several story arcs, check out our "Original Sin City Sampler". Only $0.99 on Amazon.  

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FLA8KN8

UPDATE #3 ON FREE EBOOK SAMPLER ON AMAZON

We reached #1 on Amazon's Free Best Sellers List of Noir novels, and #28 on the Free Hardboiled novels!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FLA8KN8

The giveaway is over, but the price of the sampler is only $.99! (We would make it permanently free, but Amazon wouldn't allow us to so at this time.)

We produced this large sampler because we didn't feel what Amazon is providing gives potential readers enough to judge before making a purchase.

Check it out and tell us what you think.

UPDATE #2 ON FREE EBOOK SAMPLE ON AMAZON

Woke up this morning to find our Original Sin City Sampler is ranking at #2 on Amazon's Noir Free List and #29 on Hardboiled Free List!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FLA8KN8

UPDATE ON FREE EBOOK SAMPLE ON AMAZON

It's 17 hours into the 2-day long Amazon giveaway and the "Original Sin City 20,000 Word Sampler" has hit #3 on Amazon's Noir List and #38 on the Hardboiled Mystery List!

Great! Please pass the word around and tell your friends about this free offer! Our novels are very cinematic in content!

FREE EBOOK SAMPLE ON AMAZON

From Today, October 9th to October 10, ebook samples of my wife and my hard boiled crime fiction novels are available on Amazon for FREE!

"Original Sin City 20,000 Word Sampler" contains the first 9 chapters of our Barry Award Nominated novel "Little Mexico" and the first 3 chapters of its sequel "In the Name of the Father." 

We hope that if you enjoy having a taste of our storytelling, you will buy the complete novels. Only $3.99 each.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FLA8KN8

ON WRITING LOGLINES

For those who are interesting writing for animation, check out my other blog that I write with my wife Cathie: Original Sin City. We are beginning a series of posts on writing mysteries and crime fiction novels. Those posts are informative regarding writing for animation as well.

The link to this first post is:
http://cathiejohnc.blogspot.com/2013/09/talking-about-loglines-1.html

The second one follows a couple of posts later. See you there!