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L.C. Barlow

Goodreads Author

Born

in Dallas, The United States

Website

https://lcbarlow.org/

Twitter

LCBarlowAuthor

Genre

Horror, Fantasy

Member Since

August 2011

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I am a traditionally published author (a three book deal with California Coldblood Books). Pivot, Perish, and Peak are the three novels of the Jack Harper Trilogy. Pivot was featured in Kirkus’ July 2021 issue, and Perish and Peak are Publishers Weekly editor’s picks. If you love thrillers, I recommend checking them out!

In addition, feel free to follow me on BookBub at: L.C. Barlow Books - BookBub as well as to peruse my Quora account or even email me at eternityinonehour@gmail.com

Cheers!

-Lindsey ...more

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What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

L.C. Barlow Remember that the first draft doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be written. You can’t revise something that isn’t there.

Once you have a draft…moreRemember that the first draft doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be written. You can’t revise something that isn’t there.

Once you have a draft, and someone suggests trying something, feel open to trying it. You can have several versions of the same story, and just because you take it a new direction doesn’t mean your old draft disappears if you need to go back to it. Be brave and take your story to foreign places. It’s not foreign, anymore, after you write it.

Do not expect professionals to be mean. Many are some of the kindest people you can meet.

You can only enter a room for the first time once. That’s why it’s important that you get your work to as optimum of a level as possible before submitting it to an agent or editor. Because once they “enter the room” (read your work) for the first time, they can’t see it nearly as objectively after. Your own objectiveness is compromised because you’ve been with the work for so long. That’s why you need workshoppers you can trust (and who know how to get you to emphasize things and back off things without being cruel or mean).

In every story there are “crunchy” and “floaty” items, also known as literal and figurative. The crunchy is the bare facts that ground the story. The floaty is the unnatural, metaphorical things. Often times, writers throw in figurative things to feel better or redeem the story. The reality, though, is that you don’t need to do this. You don’t need to “redeem” the story. The more you add trying to “redeem” the story, the more work you make for yourself when revising. Trust the reader to follow you.

Keep in mind the Hemingway Theory – that 10% of the story is what the author lets the audience see, and 90% is hidden. It’s very much like a glacier – the top 10% is visible, and the bottom 90% is below water. The amount of work you put into a novel is the 90%. When I wrote PIVOT, I wrote about five times the amount that the book ended up being. The book is around 280 pages. I definitely wrote over 1,000 pages while constructing it.

Read SAVE THE CAT! by Blake Snyder and THE HERO’S JOURNEY by Christopher Vogler. These were books that Nancy Holder (a prolific author and one of my professors) recommended to all of her students in my MFA program. Both books have beat sheets in terms of how a story should move. When I read them, I was so incredibly impressed. Before my MFA, I had written my first novel without any plot guidance. I retroactively compared it with Snyder’s 15-point beat sheet. To my surprise, I found that 13/15 elements in my manuscript aligned. That was the Aha! moment of, “Oh, this is why it worked. I know what I did, so now I know what to do.” I regularly return to these books and always learn something new.(less)

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What are you currently working on?

L.C. Barlow I am currently working on revisions in Peak, the last book in the Jack Harper Trilogy. In addition, I am hoping to finish up a dark fantasy novel sepa…moreI am currently working on revisions in Peak, the last book in the Jack Harper Trilogy. In addition, I am hoping to finish up a dark fantasy novel separate from the trilogy titled Seize. The main character of Seize is Beryl Portant, a seventeen-year-old seer who has just entered into her sight. In her world, there are many like her (millions of individuals) who can see potential futures, as well as the past. They are the aristocracy of Tiresia, and they rule over all those who are not clairvoyant. Though the elite of this world have obvious advantages—knowing everything that might happen before it might happen—there are downsides to visions, including the threat of knowing too much and being driven insane. Thus, seers must use a drug called Imogen to stop or limit their visions, and the government requires seers to dose regularly with it. If seers do not use Imogen, the effects are obvious—their silver eyes shift to black under the weight of too much knowledge.

Unfortunately, Beryl soon learns that Imogen does not work on her like it does with others, and after a particularly traumatic vision, one of her eyes turns black. In order to find a way to make Imogen work for her and to maybe reverse her eye’s alteration, she must seek help from an underground vigilante group who has mysteriously managed to thwart the seer dictatorship.

As Beryl seeks this group’s help, she discovers the unexpected. There are objects in her world that have no history or future, that are invisible to seers’ perception. In addition, there are people invisible to her, in that they seem to have no future and no past. As she delves deeper into who and what these individuals are, all while seeking refuge from Tiresia’s Capital, she learns that she is at the center of a threatening change in her world—the rise of those who are outside of seer sight because they exist outside of time.(less)

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Combine Editions
L.C. Barlow’s books

Average rating: 3.8 · 880 ratings · 300 reviews · 3 distinct works • Similar authors

	Pivot (Jack Harper Trilogy, #1) 3.73 avg rating — 758 ratings — published 2019 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Perish (Jack Harper Trilogy #2) 4.43 avg rating — 82 ratings — published 2020 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Peak (Jack Harper Trilogy, 3) 3.75 avg rating — 40 ratings — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.

74 posts
L.C. Barlow's Blog

On Crafting a Novel

The biggest thing I’ve realized about writing recently: There is an original source of tension for the protagonist of the novel, and the novel will seem to fall off or become unwieldy/will go off the rails when you are no longer writing scenes that delve into that original source of tension, but rather create brand new sources of tension (sometimes a brand new source each chapter). The book become Read more of this blog post »

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Published on July 21, 2022 21:20 • Tags: character, craft, creative-writing, novelist, novelists, novels, plot, writing, writing-advice, writing-life, writing-tip, writing-tips

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Series by L.C. Barlow

Jack Harper Trilogy (2 books)
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L.C. Barlow (Goodreads Author)

3.80 avg rating — 840 ratings

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I admit I was doing school, but it took me three months to get through this book. I lost interest for a long time. It took the knowledge that I've let so many books go half-way read to get me through the rest of it. It will be a long time before I go ...more
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Quotes by L.C. Barlow (?)

“They expect from me a flicker, and I give them stars.”
― L.C. Barlow, Pivot

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“And in this simple moment, I suddenly began to wonder if perhaps we shake hands with God in agreement to the lives we live, before we are ever born.”
― L.C. Barlow, Pivot

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“There are no such things as angels, I thought to myself as I walked that path. There is only Cyrus, those who follow him, and those who sneak around him. Everything is a backwards dealing, a script where errors are miracles, and corrections are only a bullet away.

As for good works, they are dangerous and impossible. Only the likes of demons can successfully complete them, and they know not wholly what they do.”
― L.C. Barlow, Pivot

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L.C.’s Quotes

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
― Dr. Seuss

tags: attributed-no-source, dreams, love, reality, sleep

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“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

tags: dreams, life

48305 likes

“Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”
― Mark Twain

tags: humor, politics

9016 likes

“When looking for a life partner, my advice to women is date all of them: the bad boys, the cool boys, the commitment-phobic boys, the crazy boys. But do not marry them. The things that make the bad boys sexy do not make them good husbands. When it comes time to settle down, find someone who wants an equal partner. Someone who thinks women should be smart, opinionated and ambitious. Someone who values fairness and expects or, even better, wants to do his share in the home. These men exist and, trust me, over time, nothing is sexier.”
― Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

tags: dating, marriage

381 likes

“I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

tags: books, infinite-jest

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