Periscope Depth

fly me high through the starry skies, maybe to an astral plane

Ferrett has an entertaining post on the supposed magical aspects of writing that I got a chuckle out of: There is a lot of magic in the art of storytelling – the writer sits down, furrows his or her brow, and a world spills from their fingers. People emerge who’d never been there before, and [...]

tension = uncertainty x stakes (part 2)

When I laid out my formula of tension = uncertainty x stakes last week, I wrote at the end: So we have uncertainty and we have stakes. Combine them and you get tension. But tension isn’t just a straight line through the narrative. It should be an arc, building toward the end and then exploding [...]

tension = uncertainty x stakes

Every story needs tension. Every story except the truly experimental needs to instill anticipation in the reader, to keep them turning the pages. Even those abstruse literary novels that are adapted from tales everyone knows (like The Story of Edgar Sawtelle) contain some tension, in the mystery of “how is he going to address this [...]

but little do they know that she’s not through

Writing a novel is hard work in itself. For some reason, I chose to make it harder by writing Too Close to Miss in first person from the viewpoint of a woman. Okay, not for some arbitrary reason. I wanted to invert certain thriller genre tropes, so a female protagonist was necessary. And I default [...]

too close to miss

Mara Cunningham knew that sleeping with a married man was a bad idea. But when her lover shows up in the hospital after his wife and son are murdered, the rumors about her turn dangerous. Now she’s the prime suspect in a double homicide, and the real killers will stop at nothing to silence her. [...]

feel like a touch, a touch too much

Greetings, Carnival of the Indies visitors! You can check out what the finished product looks like by visiting its Amazon page or continuing to read. And definitely check out the other great articles featured in this month’s Carnival as well. (Part 2 of my continuing series on the new novel, leading up to the big [...]

make you work hard, make you spend hard

(Part 1 in a series of posts promoting my new novel) One of the surest sparks to creativity is to take a familiar situation, reverse some element, and see if you can still make it work. A few years back, I was reading a lot of thrillers for inspiration – Harlan Coben, Lee Child, Joseph [...]

maybe I’m just like my mother; she’s never satisfied

Gina Damico has an entertaining post comparing the five stages of the editing process to the Kubler-Ross stages of grief. It’s funny stuff, and it’s doubtless fresh in her mind since she just wrapped up galley proofs for her debut novel, Croak. So I’d trust her if I were you. I’ve found similar reactions in [...]

when you say good-bye and walk on by

Hardcore video gamers refer to a stack of games they’ve purchased but never played as their “pile of shame.” I think it’s a little silly as a term of art – what’s there to be ashamed of? – but I understand the origin. You recognize the disconnect between what you acquire and what you consume. [...]

the floods is threatening my very life today

A few years ago, Joel linked to a New York Times article on a famous experiment by Dr. Stanley Milgram. And no, not the one you’re thinking of: Quickly, however, the focus turned to the experimenters themselves. The seemingly simple assignment proved to be extremely difficult, even traumatic, for the students to carry out. “It’s [...]

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  • Periscope Depth

    The website of John Perich, author of TOO CLOSE TO MISS and editor for Overthinking It. He's learning about writing, marketing, publishing and promotion, and he encourages you to learn along with him.

    perich@periscopedepth.com

  • TOO CLOSE TO MISS




    "... opens with a bang and never relents ..."
    "... from chapter one, I couldn't put the damn thing down ..."
    "... already looking forward to Perich's next book ..."

    Mara Cunningham knew that sleeping with a married man was a bad idea. But when her lover shows up in the hospital after his wife and son are murdered, the rumors about her turn dangerous. Now she's the prime suspect in a double homicide, and the real killers will stop at nothing to silence her ...

    Buy the book that readers are calling "a great, suspenseful thriller" at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online retailers.



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