CategoryWriting

A Teaser for my Next Novel

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This is what’s known as a teaser: I show you the cover of my next book and let you read an excerpt to get you excited about purchasing the novel when it’s published in the very near future.

Below is the cover. Here is the first chapter. Enjoy!

A Story You Would Wait in Line in the Rain to See

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Back then, my literary agent, who I had just signed a contract with to represent my novel, “Stash,” asked me if I’d ever heard of Robert McKee and his book, “Story.” I hadn’t. She suggested I get the book, read the book, and then work on my novel some more. I had mistakenly believed the novel was finished. After all, she’d agreed to represent me, so she must have thought “Stash” could sell. But...

Is “The Culling” Catching On?

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I’ve been getting some enthusiastic feedback about “The Culling,” my dystopian thriller about a woman on the run from an unjust death sentence and the mercenary assigned to hunt her. If you haven’t had a chance to check it out, here’s the link. Below is a brief scene from the novel. It takes place just after Maren meets her neighbor Ven at a small party and he offers...

A Sizzling End-of-Summer Read

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Hey there—if you’re looking for a hot, page-turning beach read to cap the summer season, I’ve just published my third novel: “The Culling.” This dystopian thriller is about a woman on the run from an unjust death sentence who teams up with the mercenary assigned to hunt her in an attempt to escape and join the resistance against the authoritarian regime. Think of it as Shirley...

I Had to Write a Dystopian Novel

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Genre fiction fits into defined categories in order to appeal to readers who groove on that particular type of story. Fantasy, crime, science fiction, thriller, horror, and romance are popular genres. I never thought I’d dabble in genre fiction. My other novels (Stash, Clean Break) can only be considered general fiction. Not literary enough for the highbrow, not formulaic enough to fit into a...

The Scariest Scene for a Writer

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Sometimes the stars align and we’re all at home and in the mood to watch a movie as a family. This time we went old school and sat down to the iconic horror film “The Shining”, directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on the novel by Stephen King. From Rotten Tomatoes: “Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) becomes winter caretaker at the isolated Overlook Hotel in Colorado, hoping to cure his...

And I Call Myself a Writer!

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I’ve been a writer most of my career and managed to cobble together a living doing so. I’ve had novels published. I’ve written a zillion words for corporate clients. I’ve taught college-level writing. I’ve mentored other writers and have edited other writers’ work. You’d think at this point I’d have a high degree of competency with the English language. Maybe even consider myself a master...

It’s Not So Easy Being A Giant

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André the Giant was born André René Roussimoff, a French professional wrestler who was over seven feet tall and afflicted with acromegaly, a disorder in which the pituitary gland produces too much growth hormone. He died at age forty-six.  Visiting a statue of Robert Wadlow when the kids were young. Robert Wadlow, also known as the Giant of Illinois, at eight feet eleven inches, was the tallest...

A Way to Make Life More Bearable

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I got a Facebook message from a woman who said her granddaughter has “her heart set on being a writer.” Said granddaughter is always writing in her journal and writing poems and stories. Grandmother wants to know if I have any advice or tips she can pass on to her granddaughter. Sometimes I think there’s more advice out there about writing than there is actual writing. Do a Google...

Immoral Books

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What book are you reading? It’s called “Maus.” What? Where did you get that? The school board made it very clear that book was being removed from the library. Noelle lent it to me. She owns a copy. You’re not supposed to have that book. It shows people hanging. It shows the Nazis killing kids and there are naked people in the book. Schools should not be promoting that kind of thing. They’re not...

French Toast as a Storytelling Device

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Why is French toast such an effective storytelling device? A generation ago, in two consecutive years (1979 and 1980), the Academy Award for Best Picture went to a film in which French toast serves a pivotal role in developing character in two early scenes. In Kramer vs. Kramer, Joanna (Meryl Streep) suddenly leaves her husband, Ted, (Dustin Hoffman), a workaholic advertising executive, on the...

The Ice Storm in CLEAN BREAK

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The world is coated with ice outside my window and it makes me think of an ice storm that served as a literary device in my novel, CLEAN BREAK (thank you, Harriet). I call it a literary device because it’s one of those writer’s tools I’m using to move my characters around into the right locations for the critical subsequent scenes. Plus it casts a chilly, foreboding atmosphere...

I’ve Been a Drug Addict

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I’ve been a father who doesn’t take his heart condition seriously but instead focuses on preventing his daughter from marrying a man he doesn’t approve of. I’ve been his daughter, a recent college graduate who meets the wrong kind of guy and slides into drug and alcohol abuse. I’ve been that wrong kind of guy who isn’t an awful person but will manipulate others to achieve his goals. I’ve been a...

Is Facebook Getting Into Poetry?

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Another corporate giant has rebranded itself. Facebook the company is now Meta the company. I suppose it had to be done because of brand confusion. Facebook was the name of the company as well as the name of the app used by billions of people. It’s similar to when Google the company became Alphabet the company, and Google remained one of Alphabet’s platforms. So why now? Many observers...

The Car Ride

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I hated that people thought my father was crazy, because the guys were right: That kind of stuff could be hereditary. It can get mixed up in your genes. I could be next. To make matters worse, about a month after the McGuire thing my father showed up at school one morning at nine o’clock. I’d only been there an hour. He had the vice-principal come and get me out of class, making like there...

David Klein

Published novelist, creative writer, journalist, avid reader, discriminating screen watcher.

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