Monday, April 4, 2011

Liquid Fear: The plot twists of life by Scott Nicholson


(Scott’s mystery/thriller Liquid Fear is launching at the sale price of 99 cents at Amazon, BN.com, and Smashwords—signed paper version can be preordered at Haunted Computer).

How scared are you?

Back when I first started Liquid Fear, I was pretty scared. It was a bleak time in my life, my book contracts at run out, and I was running a household by myself. My agent at the time said “Try a thriller,” without specifying any particular genre. I like thrillers, so it sounded like a fun change from my supernatural novels, which often used thriller elements anyway.

The problem was that I had to write an outline so the agent could pitch it to this editor who was a fan of my work. I have never outlined in my life, except for in the old days when for some bizarre reason publishers made you write an outline for books you’d already written before they would look at the book.

So I wrote a few chapters and came up with an outline that made little sense, because I had no idea what had happened in the story. How the heck do I know what these characters will do, especially while their minds are being scrambled by drugs that alternately make them rage and forget?

Long story short, the editor said “It’s confusing” and I think that was the end of that. I eventually left that agent, who was a good guy and tried hard but we just ran out of steam. I left the idea dormant for a few years, though I continued to research feel-good pharmaceuticals (reading, not taking!). When the indie era happened, I published my bestseller Disintegration, and since I now had the freedom to do whatever I wanted, I decided to find out what happened to those people in Liquid Fear.

The result—those people are wackos and I hope you never run into them on the street, especially when they are Seething!

Liquid Fear. A little drop will do.
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Scott Nicholson is author of 20 books, including The Red Church, The Skull Ring, Speed Dating with the Dead, and Drummer Boy. Visit Haunted Computer to learn more or order signed books.
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Scott Nicholson is author of 20 books, including Disintegration, The Skull Ring, The Red Church, and Speed Dating with the Dead. Visit him at Haunted Computer.

17 comments:

  1. Thanks for the introduction, Scott's story was fascinating - I had no idea of all the 'hoops' authors had to jump through.

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  2. hi Petty, thanks for dropping by, and thanks for hosting me, Melissa!

    Scott

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  3. Thanks for telling us about your journey to publishing Liquid Fear! The road to publishing can be so scary.

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  4. I'm seeing this book everywhere now and it just gets more and more interesting every time I see it! And I'm miserable at outlines, if I had to do one for a book it would be an epic fail:)

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  5. I haven't heard of this book before, so thanx for telling us about your journey!

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  6. I see this book around a lot! I must pick it up soon!

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  7. I rage and forget without drugs, and that is pretty scary. Maybe I could join up with these wackos. That could be fun.

    Funny about publishers wanting authors to go back and do an outline even when they finished writing the book.

    Thanks for the guest post.

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  8. I must say, that I do like the title of this book

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  9. I love the tag line and the cover -unforgettable!

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  10. Hi Misha, not with indie publishing! It's scary NOT to do it.

    Jenny, take the plunge--it's not so scary...

    Nina,Savannah, I hope you give it a try, it won't stay 99 cents for long! Missie, publishers are strange but then they have sales staffs to deal with...

    Blodeuedd, the cover is a riff on "liquid courage"

    Glad you like the cover, Stephanie--I wanted it to be bold

    Scott

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  11. Interesting. Sounds like it all worked out for the best in the end for the book though. :) Thanks!

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  12. This was such a fun post! Thanks for sharing with us Scott!

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  13. Thanks Scott for coming by and sharing something about being an author!

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  14. Hi Melissa and Samita, glad you came by!

    Scott

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  15. This book sounds so intriguing!
    *Runs off to check it out on Goodreads*...
    ;)

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  16. Looking forward to reading it

    bacchus76 at myself dot com

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