Tangled, A Texas Gothic Yarn

Some readers may not want to tackle a trilogy. They want all the story in one place with a beginning and an end. I think the individual Sabine Trilogy books offered that, but I'm not objective. Tangled, A Southern Gothic Yarn, is an attempt to consolidate the Sabine story with the addition of two new characters, Tess and Pup.

I attended a writer's workshop last year. It was a great experience and I met several people in the traditional publishing business and some wonderful, creative writers. Some of these creative people had already been published and wanted tips on writing marketable future novels. We were all there to learn new things and meet people who could instruct us on the publishing business. What we learned is, it's highly competitive and changing daily because of self-publishers like Amazon Kindle, Smashwords, Draft2Digital and others. Regardless of the publisher, there were some basic tips on developing a novel that readers might want to purchase.

First, I needed to define my audience and the genre. I think my audience is women, probably women over thirty. The genre is fiction, with a heavy influence of southern gothic. My stories met all the tropes. However, my protagonist in Sabine was a child. It was recommended that I rewrite the story, allowing the protagonist to view her childhood as a young adult. Of course, I immediately thought of To Kill A Mockingbird, Scout was not a young adult. However, I am not Harper Lee, so I decided to listen to the professionals. (Lee received just the opposite advice from her publisher. They wanted the story from Scout as a child).

I came home from the workshop and rewrote, following the advice of the mentors. I sat down with Robert Owen Butler, a Pulitzer Prize winning author. He gave me some great tips and I hope I was able to weave them into Tangled. Butler's book on writing, From Where We Dream, is a great read and is applicable to anyone in the creative process. I have read it several times and pull it out to read sections over and over.

So, here is yet another story, but it will be familiar to those who have read the trilogy. It is back from the editor and has a cover. I'm spiffing it up and it will be published by the middle of March. I'm trying a new option on Amazon because I want to launch it at a reduced price for anyone who has read the trilogy and wants to compare. I, personally, like the addition of Tess and Pup. I would welcome any comments on which readers preferred. It's a learning process and I'm in the thick of it.