Please welcome Mark Carver to the site as a guest blogger participating in the Mega-Dark Book Blog Tour. The Mega Dark Book Blog Tour will feature a total of six authors, including myself, throughout the month of August. Every few days a new author will be featured on each blog. The posts will vary in content and structure, providing insight into the mind of a writer.
MEGA-DARK BOOK BLOG TOUR: “HOW DOES IT FEEL?”
After I finished writing The Age of Apollyon and realized the story was far from over, I faced an obvious question: what next? As the embers of my imagination began to reignite and Black Sun began to take shape, I realized something else. I realized that I needed to make the story more personal, more character-driven. In essence, I needed to make it more emotional.
I’m not very emotional by nature. I’m generally a patient, even-tempered person who likes to deal with facts rather than feelings. This carries over into my writing, and while The Age of Apollyon has some intense moments, the emotional temperature of the story rarely reaches the boiling point.
I was fortunate enough to have the late David B. Silva, a Bram Stoker award-winning horror author read my book, and while he had high praise for the storyline and characters, he gave me a piece of advice that I’ve tried to incorporate into everything I’ve written since. He told me that I need to write more emotively. I didn’t really know what he meant, but as I read books written by successful authors, I realized how emotional their writing was. I also realized that this is what grabs readers’ attention. Storylines, characters, world-building – these are all important, but the book has to connect with the reader on a personal and emotional level, because this is what engages their imagination.
So as I was laying the groundwork for Black Sun, I kept this mantra in mind. And the story that resulted is far different in tone and scope than The Age of Apollyon. I didn’t need to flesh out the topsy-turvy world this trilogy inhabits – that was taken care of in the first book. In Black Sun, I chose to focus on Patric’s development and spiritual dilemmas, as well as the progression of the sinister plans that were set in motion in The Age of Apollyon.
In my opinion, Black Sun is much more emotionally intense than its predecessor, and while it retains plenty of Gothic melodrama and atmospheric horror, the characters rather than the world take center stage. In fact, two prominent characters in Black Sun are mentioned only briefly in The Age of Apollyon, but they play a major part in the second and yet-to-be-finished third book. As the characters grow and develop, I wanted the books themselves to follow suite. I want the trilogy to be cohesive, of course, but I also want each book to have its own tone, its own voice.
Its own feel.
 The Age of Apollyon is available now on Paperback, Kindle & Nook. |
 Black Sun is also available on Kindle & Nook (paperback version will be available in just a few weeks). |
For more information about Mark and his books, please visit his official website: http://markcarverbooks.blogspot.com