Review: A Proposal to Die For by Vivian Conroy

Are you tired of mysteries where the detective figures the case using evidence you have not seen? Do you dislike when they reveal the culprit you had no hope of properly proving? Are you interested in the investigation itself rather than a sudden twist? Then this is a book for you. The fact that it's clean is also a great feature.

Personally, I would call this a Lady Alkmene Investigation rather than mystery, but that's not to dismiss the mystery, just emphasize the strength of the investigation. It also is good to know that you don't need to worry when they examine details of things like a map.

The story is told through the eyes of Lady Alkmene on her first case. It's a very observant book as she notes everything she sees and thinks in a realistic manner. Not only does she see things, but she thinks and feels and then acts based off them. This authenticity carries through most of the book and is expanded upon with the introduction of the foil, Jake.

Jake is almost the opposite of Lady Alkmene. He is more experienced in investigations and lower class. These provide tension between the two as they share their respective biased views. This is used to good effect as we get to see different opinions on the same thing and cases where neither of them have the perfect answer.

The book is also clean in content. While there is some class politics discussed, neither side makes a strong enough case and it was more to provide context for the characters’ bias while sitting the world is more complicated than expected. The only moral injection I had was Lady Alkmene lying in one case.

The weakest part of the book is the ending. It wraps things up, but it's one that gives the impression  it was writing what the plot demanded rather than what the story needed. The characters rightfully acknowledge it should be hard to catch the criminal they suspect, but then it's easy and the criminal admitted to everything on incomplete and circumstantial evidence. And don't get me started on the use of circumstantial evidence.

That being said, the book held my attention throughout and only dropped in the end. There were a few sections where I had to re-read, but it was not a serious issue. I liked the book and reading how the investigation played out. I enjoyed the interactions between the characters and reading their thoughts. There is no sudden and great twist, and there is nothing for the reader to solve, but this book is proof those are not necessary in a mystery after all.

(By the way, the sequel addresses some of the issues and is indeed an improvement. You can also get a 4 mystery bundle)

My Approach Toward Writing

I like telling stories. My guess is you like telling stories too or at least like consuming them. Will any of our stories be perfect? That's a relative question in which the answer is always no or potentially yes. If you mean everyone loves it and it's a textbook example of what to do, no. If it's something that can be enjoyed, then that's very much possible. For this essay, I'm going to focus on the latter and how I think is a good way to go about writing.

Step 1: What do you want to tell?
If we don't have a story to tell, then we will undoubtedly encounter writer's block. At the same time, it will be hard to convince people to consume our story of we cannot give a reason for telling it.

Step 2: flexibly plot
Some people write going with the flow and others plot everything. I think the best approach is down the middle. Related to step one, we need to have a reason to tell your story and having a plot helps us identify it. If we just go with the flow of sounds good at the moment, we may end up like The Last Jedi where it's emotionally good and had some great scenes, but also is very incoherent and messes up the Star Wars universe.

However, if we plot everything, then we can fall into the trap where we write around the plot and not what should happen naturally. The Last Jedi also failed here with some scenes, but perhaps not as bad as the Star Wars prequel trilogy. For example, we knew Anakin had to convert to the dark side, but it was not convincing why he did what he did. Why kill children without hesitation instead of having the join him? At the same time, perhaps what critics really attack is the dialogue does not feel real.

Step 3: feel the right emotion
A good storyteller makes the story feel alive. A good writer best enables the storyteller in the mind of the reader.

We need to remember that for characters to feel alive, we need to focus on the emotions and the moment. This is perhaps the core of “show more, tell less.” If people simply wanted to know what happened, they would be satisfied with SparkNotes or Wikipedia. People want stories for the emotions. Therefore it's important that the reader feels part of the story. In some cases, it's fine to summarize a series of events, but in general, engagement is key.

An important way to engage the reader is through our word choice. Words have emotional pull and that is what poetry hinges on. Certain words can trigger certain emotions. At the same time, words can also reflect our current emotions. If you are bored while writing, you might write boringly and then the reader will likely be bored when reading. However, if you are excited while writing an action scene, the reader will likely feel the same.

Step 4: repeat steps 2 and 3 until completion
We are likely to encounter situations where we cannot naturally progress to our plot points. In these cases, we may want to try a few tactics. Rearrange the plot points; remove some scenes; tell the story from a different perspective. Just make sure we continue this all the way through the ending because that’s the sentiment that the audience leaves with.

Also feel free to work on a different story. The creative process we work there can help us progress in our current story. Sometimes we just need to change our focus to find inspiration.

Step 5: read the story on a different device
A read on a Kindle can help us catch many typos or other weird things. I bought my Kindle used for $20 and it had worked out nicely. We can email docs and PDFs directly to the Kindle device, and if we use Kindle Direct Publishing, we can even send a Kindle formatted version.

Step 6: find proofreaders
These people can help us catch more typos and mistakes. At the same time, they can provide feedback about how it reads. An issue with editing is we sometimes remove critical information. This is a chance to catch those absences. Also pay attention if they received the correct impression we were aiming for. If you provided important information inside a large paragraph, it was probably missed.

I have found some beta readers using the #betareaders and #writingcommunity on Twitter.  Friends and family members can also give good feedback.

If we have a publisher willing to pay for a professional editor, that would be good to utilize as well. If we are self-publishing, then I have yet to justify the price I paid createspace for their services. It was helpful, but not more than my friends and father.

Step 7: edit and repeat until ready to stop.
At some point, we need to stop for our own sanity. Our creative will always think of ways to “improve” but at some point, we'll start making things worse and hate our creation. I think it's fair to accept a good state and save the new ideas for adaptations or new stories.

Step Anytime: ask others how to grow your audience
Considering my Twitter follower count only just reached 100, I am not the person to ask for growing audience.

Happy writing,
J. D. Nyle

Review: The Strangers We Know by R.M. Mulkey

Jared regrets not spending more time with his sister before her murder. Rylee is an artist and was her best friend. When Jared visits the small town of Crescent Valley, Georgia to see where his sister lives and potentially get answers, they meet. Will their love bloom and find answers or will Rylee be the next corpse to plant flowers next to?

I wrote that description to help explain what the book is about. From the title and description on the product page, I was under the impression that I was going to be reading a mystery. After reading the book, I am more convinced it is a romance novel set in the context of a mystery. When assuming this, I think it's easier to enjoy.

If you are a mystery lover like myself, who likes to solve the case, you probably will be disappointed, unless the types of mysteries you like are dramas such as NCIS where you are not really allowed to solve the case. You may know the culprit, but the real focus is the drama.

I did find myself interested in the book and often looked for time to read. However, I found myself disappointed that the progression was primarily revelations rather than investigations and deductions.

A tricky thing with mysteries is that they depend upon the twist revelation to be well executed. A servable twist explains things. A great twist not only explains things, but completely changes how you view events, and it does so by overturning something the audience took for granted. Examples of this would be the Prestige, Empire Strikes Back, or the Sixth Sense. In this novel, I felt like it really only affected my view of one character, who was not the culprit.

Another thing about mysteries is the deduction process. A good mystery, in my opinion, shows more than it tells. Here, rather than actions leading to results, people just inform. This applies to the storytelling as well. It's said that Jared is a good negotiator, but I really did not see any evidence of that.

Finally, the ending has a lot to be desired of. It does not make sense in terms of some character actions. While it does tie up the main mystery, it still left me with some questions. At the same time, the last chapter felt tacked on. As a result, I see this as mostly a plot-driven-story rather than a story-driven-plot, which is probably best for a solid mystery.

But what if we think of this as a romance first? Then I don't think my complaints above matter so much. If you are not interested in who is the culprit but whether Jared and Rylee get together or not, I think it works. I'm not a romance expert, but I found it interesting enough. For me, the importance of romance is not if the characters are compatible, but rather the emotions and choices they make feel real and nothing objectionable happens. For those two points, I think it succeeds here.

One critique that will still stand is that it can be a bit hard to read at times. Occasionally a paragraph would take up a whole page. I would sometimes have to backtrack and re-read entire pages. One mystery in each chapter is when it occurs and where as sometimes you might expect it to continue to right off the previous, but it takes place days later. There are also a few grammatical errors, though one might be how they talk in Georgia. I asked my colleague from Georgia and she said that she has heard some people speak of the dead like they are alive like “Jess is our friend.”

In conclusion, it may not be the best novel you have ever read, and certainly not a best mystery, but as a romance, I thinks it's fine.

Note: if you are curious about language content, there was at least one f-bomb and a quite a few cases of "God" used for emphasis. Otherwise, a relatively clean book when it comes to language. As for sexual content, there was nothing explicit, but Jared is hinted at doing one night stands with many women before the events of the book.

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Review: The Nightmare by Rachel Sandell

Greetings!
Today, I would like to share a review of The Nightmare: A Short Story by Rachel Sandell. Quick notes:

1. This is not a horror story despite what the title might have you think
2. Since this is a short story based off Greek Mythology, spoilers are a bit hard to avoid

Summary
This story takes a look at two questions:

1. What were the god of the Underworld's thoughts about falling in love with Persephone? 
2. What if Hades was good and Zeus was the malicious one?

The result is a story from Hades point of view about falling in love with Persephone. The story is entirely from his perspective and his thoughts and that serves as the appeal that carries the story through. The result is an interesting story with potential to be even better, but something that I still enjoyed.

Structure
Since the story is told by Hades himself, I found it a bit difficult to understand the structure. While I can understand the story and follow along, I found myself afterwards wondering how I was supposed to interpret the storytelling.The best that I can think of is that it was reflecting while also moving forward in the present. That would help explain why the ending does not appear to reflect the beginning. However, because Hades is the narrator and speaking in past tense, it's a bit difficult to confirm if that was the case.

Accessibility

While Rachel does a fair job of providing most of the details needed to enjoy the story, my gap of knowledge surrounding Greek mythology made some things a little difficult to understand. However, even with a gap of knowledge, I found the book easy enough to read. After reading the story and then Wikipedia, I can see the story follows enough on course which can help explain some things I was left wondering after reading the book, though not all. 

Characters
Of all of the characters, Hades is the most developed and his perspective is what made me interested. He comes across like a bitter introvert who thinks the world hates him, but at the same time, doesn't understand why. We see the signs of trickery and we can understand why Hades feels like Zeus was always tricking him, but I was never satisfied with an answer why. This leads Zeus into being simply a villain with no understandable motive. The closest hint I get is that Hades might potentially be more powerful than all of the gods. If this is the case, perhaps it makes sense that Hades does not understand the reason himself, but that still left me wondering long after I read the story. At the same time, that could be a good setup for a followup.

Now while Hades' crush on Persephone is understandable and a good depiction on what a guy of that type might think, I did not find the actual portrayal of Persephone appealing. The impression I got was of a female stereotype who does not have a good reason for falling in love with Hades. At least not any reason that we see. The same applies to the other gods' hatred and actions as well such as Demeter taking her rage on Earth when she is angry with Hades.

Perhaps the second best-developed character is Hermes, the messenger god. A guy who perhaps best understands Hades is not evil and yet is fearful of Zeus, leading to some personal turmoil.

Moral Caution

The only morally objectionable action by Hades is taking Persephone without her consent and against her will. While he did obtain Zeus' permission, I would certainly emphasize to my son that it is not a good way to make your crush like you. However, since that is being true to source material, I cannot blame Rachel for following that path. At the same time, if the reader does not have any background knowledge of the source material, then that might leave them with a bad taste.

Writing Lessons To Glean
All of that being said, since Hades himself is a well-developed character and his thoughts are interesting enough, the story being carried by his narration works out very well. Aside from taking Persephone without her consent, he's not a guy to hate. By having a decent character with interesting thoughts, that can be enough to entice the reader and be enjoyable.

However, that is not to say the narration and thoughts do not have room for improvement. There are a few times where one paragraph took up the entire screen on my kindle. A few of these, I think could have been broken up into multiple paragraphs which would have helped with keeping my place on the page and organizing the content. In addition, I had at least one occasion where I backtracked figure out if I had not skipped a page by accident. In the end, these issues were minor enough that they did not detract enough from the experience, but if there would be a revision, I would promote paying attention to them.

Conclusion

Personally, I liked the story in the end and have no regrets for paying $1 to read it, even though I was not at all interested in the underworld or Hades. And yet, Rachel did a good job that enticed me to buy the story with just the 10% preview on the Amazon page. I was worried that there would be horror elements, but there was nothing compared to what I can expect to find in Greek Mythology. I certainly do not expect it to give me a nightmare, but I can admit it makes me think a lot.

I do think the story can be improved, maybe even reworked to help address the issues I had. Perhaps the biggest issue is that I'm not sure who the target audience is and therefore cannot make an accurate recommendation. All I can say is I like it and I think it's worth to at least preview it, but I do not have a name for the type of audience that would like the book. All I know is that I somehow happen to be one of it.

J. D. Nyle

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Review: I Told You So!: The Adventures of William and Thomas by Mark Gunning

Greetings!
As first post of the blog, I would like to share a review of I Told You So!: The Adventures of William and Thomas by Mark Gunning.

Summary
The book is a collection of six hi-jinks of William and Thomas. Primarily, William is the creative and driving force while Thomas is the accomplice and chronicler. This dynamic leads to not only fun escapades but also ones with believable and compatible characters.

Structure
Each episode is pretty much self-contained aside from a couple of references to the previous one. Each starts off with Thomas receiving texts prompting him to excitedly visit William for the next adventure. William shares plans and then they execute to a mishap but somehow amusing end. Things always go wrong somehow, but never tragic (unless you count some broken bones) and not necessarily how you expect them to go.

Length
The book is easy to read within one or three sittings. The brevity of the book may make you a bit sad, but it actually is perhaps for the best. While I don't need to read the stories a second time for myself, I can certainly see myself reaching for the book to pull a story for my son for bedtime. In fact, I can see him asking me to, "Read me the plunger one! No wait, I want to hear about the ramp again!"

There are only six escapades, but each is a decent length for a bedtime story. At the same time, by having only six episodes, the welcome has not been worn out by the end and it makes it easier to enjoy the individual episodes. I think if I was reading twelves adventures straight, I'd be a bit tired of them. But with just six, I would not mind occasionally re-reading one and then after a few months, maybe pick up the next collection.


Writing Lessons To Glean
There are two main characters in the book and Mark Gunning does a good job of making them distinct, compatible, and believable. At the same time, he does a good job harnessing the essence of two types of adolescent boys. Something that may seem silly or stupid to an adult can be incredibly cool to a 12-year-old. I remember when I was little and thinking that jumping off a ramp with a bike was so cool. I know my cousin would certainly would be the type to do these sort of escapes much to his mother's dismay.

One tiny annoyance is the overuse of William's name. I forgot Thomas' name because I feel like it's mentioned only in the title and description, whereas William's name is mentioned multiple times in the same paragraph even though the subject did not change. It's a minor thing, but it did catch my attention that I was pulled out of the book for a moment.

The book contains a few illustrations throughout, at least one for the texts and one for a plan. These are good for a few reasons. One, it actually made me more interested in the book when I read the preview. Two, it helps with understanding what is going to happen. By having a picture of the plan, it makes it easier to know what Thomas is writing about. Three, it helps with mental spacing and refresh. Small paragraphs and a little variety for the eyes helps keep the brain alive and know where they are in the story. I once read a detective novel but it was really hard to read because the paragraphs were often as large as the page. That made it easy to lose my place on the page, but here that was not an issue.


Moral Caution
From a moral standpoint, there is not much to object here. There is no swearing, no profanity, no sexual objectification, etc. The book is simply boys having fun being boys and I like that a lot. The only thing I would caution against is that, while there is no bullying, if not cautioned about, the sense of humor in the book could lead to bullying. Thomas certainly has boyish respect for William, but he also is sure to record the moment when things go wrong to laugh about.

To be fair, it could be said that Thomas is laughing at the situation and not William, but it is also understandable for William to be upset about that every time. Therefore, when reading these stories to children, who are developing their sense of humor, it would be a good time to point out how to avoid being like a bully. For more info on this opinion, I recommend reading the essay Concerning Humor.


Conclusion
I like the book. It's simple boyish fun that I would not mind reading to my own son. I hope that it would spur his imagination while also serving as caution to avoid doing too dangerous things. My only worry is the sense of humor may develop wrong. However, as long as I fulfill my role as a parent and talk to him about that sort of thing, I don't think I need to worry too much.

If you want a book that is light and fun, I recommend at least previewing this book. If you need more, I noticed it was available on Kindle Unlimited, which I read still pays the authors based off the number of pages read. This book is actually what convinced me to try out the service. I hope you enjoy reading if you decide to pick this up.

J. D. Nyle

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