Dan Alatorre's Blog, page 2

“This is one of those books a person just can’t put down.”

My medical thriller The Gamma Sequence gets reviewed at Sunny Island Breezes blog. Check it out.

I don’t know where to start. This is one of those books a person just can’t put down.

It’s fast paced with lots of action. Lanaya Kim tricks Hamilton DeShear into going with her to track down a killer who is targeting a list of people from Angelus Genetics who gave him both life and death. She’s on that list.

As they race around the country hiding but still getting shot at, they are trying to find the Greyhound and stop the murder of all the people who worked on the Gamma Sequence. In the end, they have to take down Angelus Genetics.

Click HERE to read the rest of the review at Sunny Island Breezes

 

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Wings & Fire: A horror anthology with 23 stories from 15 authors (The Box Under The Bed Book 5)

Another winner, I think (but I may be biased).

Wings & Fire, the newest horror anthology in the Box Under The Bed series, compiled by Dan Alatorre, is currently available for pre-order and will be published on the 15th of January.

I am delighted to say that I have three short stories in this anthology and they are all different. One is a dystopian story about our not-to-distant world deeply in the throws of climate change and the Fourth Industrial Revolution (my first sci-fi or cli-fi story), one is about a farm murder (horror story), and the last one is about the destruction of the pink and white terraces in New Zealand in 1886 (a historical paranormal story).

The Blurb

From the creators of the #1 bestselling horror anthologyThe Box Under The Bedand its #1 bestselling sequelsDark Visions, Nightmareland, and SpellboundcomesWings & Fire, a horror anthology with 24 stories from…

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A ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review for The Keepers (The Gamma Sequence Book 4) by Dan Alatorre USA Today Best Selling Author

5 Stars for The Keepers!

Sassy Redhead Book Reviews

Hank DeShear is a private detective that has endured tragedy in his past, now he has the responsibility of a 5-year girl, Constantine, that is very special and very sought after. He will do anything to keep her safe and protected, but when he is double-crossed by boat captain, his whole world could implode and he could lose everything, the woman he loves, the little girl he has vowed to protect, and even his freedom, or his life.

Jaden Trinn is a US Agent for a special group. She’s also the woman that Hank DeShear loves. She is just as determined to protect and keep Constantine safe as Hank is, but a leisurely boat and fishing trip will turn very dangerous and memorable for this group. Jaden will have to fight for her life on more than one occasion to get back to Hank and Constantine.

Keeper 27 is a…

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Protected: Private: Wings & Fire auditions

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What is an example of an emotionally driven challenge in a story?

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You guys read stories. You watch movies, see plays…

What is a good example of an emotionally driven challenge in a story you liked?

Reply and let me know.

Could be a book or movie, whatever, but explain a little about the challenge and the character that undertook it, and why it stood out to you.

We all have our faves. I’m curious about an emotional challenge in a story that you thought was good.

Let’s see what ya got.

Writing A Scene On A Boat

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(Of course, that means the characters are on the boat, not me. I’m not sitting in a deck chair, rocking back and forth while I write.)
 
Part of the fun of writing a book is taking the reader on an adventure, and part of the fun of the adventure is having the details be accurate.
 
When you have your characters out on the water, things change a little bit. I used to have a boat, so I know some of the terminology for a recreational vessel of a certain size, but as an author I have to walk a fine line.
 
And this applies across the board, whether it’s boating or camping or skydiving, and also whether we are dealing with a gun or ammunition, the way a police officer stands when he or she holds their gun, or even what type of gun it is.
 
And the dilemma is this:
 
We need to be accurate but not too accurate.
 
For example, I know what side of the boat is port and starboard. My reader may not. Some will, but a lot won’t. So I have to write the scene using the right terminology, but doing it in such a way that it doesn’t really matter too much if you read it and don’t know port from starboard.
 
There’s also the bow in the stern (front and back). Ropes on a boat are called lines. The floor of a boat is called the deck.
 
And then if there are multiple levels to the boat, you can be below deck or above deck. You can be fore or aft, or for or stern.
 
So what I try to do is think back to when I didn’t own a boat, and the types of things I probably would’ve known from general knowledge, and I stick to that. If I have to refer to a boat rope twice, then one time I will call it a line and the next time I’ll call it a rope – and I’ll do it in close enough proximity and with surrounding detail to clue the reader in. If the guy throws the line, I can say the other person caught the rope, or that the rope fell onto the deck and draped itself over the railing or something, letting the reader knows the physical characteristics of “the line” so they can get an idea of what it is. (Really, on that one, most readers would probably already know a line is a rope.) While switching between line and rope isn’t completely accurate, it’s going to bridge the gap of confusion for those who aren’t completely aware of boating terminology.
 
And for anyone who doesn’t make the connection, rest assured: knowing a line is a rope will NOT affect your ability to enjoy the story.

Stuff like that will be inconsequential if you didn’t get it.
 
I had a boat with a motor. Sailboats have an additional vocabulary for all the rigging and types of sails. They have a keel. Most boats with motors don’t have that. And even with boats that have motors, there’s gonna be an inboard or an outboard; depending on the size of the boat, it may have several motors. It’s gonna have a propeller and a gas line. A small sailboat might not need much of that, but bigger sailboats tend to have motors for when there’s no wind.
 
And that’s all before you get into things like the head and the berth, which are the bathroom and the bedroom, respectively. I usually have one character correct another character with stuff like that:
“There’s a shopping bag on the table down below, with a new t-shirt and shorts from the hotel shop. The puppy print ones you liked. You can change in the bathroom.”
Constantine shuffled away from the railing. “On a boat, the bathroom’s called ‘the head.’ Did you cut the tags off the shirts? They itch me.”
“I did. Scoot. We’ll put on more sunscreen when you come back. And I got you a hat, too. It’s in the bag.”
Frowning, Constantine descended the stairs. “I don’t fancy wearing a hat.”
“I don’t fancy skin cancer.” Trinn slid her fishing rod out of the holder and cranked the reel, pulling in her line.
 
Well as I say, this is the type of stuff we run into with every story. If a guy goes in the desert, he’s probably not going to find an oak tree. He might find a cactus.
 
If somebody goes to Indonesia, and he’s looking for a cab driver who is sleeping in the shade of a tree, you have to find out what kind of trees they have in Indonesia! They might not have oak trees. And the noise in the trees might be from birds we don’t have here.
 
But as I mentioned, part of the fun of writing a book is taking the reader on an adventure, and part of the fun of the adventure is having the details be accurate.
 
So the cab driver is sleeping in the shade of a pala tree.
 
If I do my job right, do you have a good time and feel like you went to a new place, but you don’t feel lost and confused on the way.
 
Which is probably good advice for any kind of a trip you take.

Open Book Blog Hop – Humour

Robbie shares a few thoughts on including Humor in her writing

‘Is humour an important element is your stories? Do you ever laugh at something you’ve written?’

I am a very serious person. I have always been like that. My mother says I was a serious and self controlled baby. I rarely cried or gave her any trouble. I was what people call an “easy” baby. My mother says it was almost as if I knew how difficult things were for her following my biological father’s death and I made her life as easy as possible. Who knows, maybe babies can sense such things.

I was also an easy toddler. I went to nursery school because my mother had to work full time and mother says I never complained or even spoke about school. This characteristic of quiet tolerance has followed me throughout my life. In retrospect, it has not been a good thing for me. I should have realised you…

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the merry go round in the woods – what does that phrase invoke to you?

What does that phrase invoke to you?

Fun?

The colorful leaves of Fall?

A horror story, where some scary person lures kids into the forest with the promises of a fun kiddie ride, then kills them?

Thoughts?