Tag Archives: amwriting

Auran Chronicles #3, interview and new cover

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So, Auran Chronicles #3, “Weave Born”, is in the last 20,000 words of the first draft. The end is in sight, all the characters (those still standing) are in their right places on stage to see this thing out.

And there was much rejoicing…

It’s a strange feeling now. Although it’s taken only (only!) a year to write the three books of the Auran Chronicles, the actual story has been sat in my head for years. So it’s with a mixture of excitement and sadness that I near the end. I’m still planning on sticking to the ending I’ve had in mind all along, but may apply a slight tweak or two after receiving some stern instructions from Mrs D as to who I’m allowed to kill off (and who not, more specifically!)! In the end, though, I’ll stay true to the characters and their journey. Seb has gone from the “every man” to the potential saviour of the whole universe, Sylph has perhaps gone through the most severest tests of all after losing everything she’d ever known, and Cade, well, if you read Consensus Breaking you know Cade isn’t in the best of places right now…

Weave Born contains the same mix of swords, sorcery, mythology and horror you will have come to expect from the Auran Chronicles, all ramped up to the max for this final instalment. Keep an eye out for it November/December time!

In other news, I’ve taken part in an author interview with the delightful folks at Outlet Publishing. You can find the interview here. Thanks Caitlin!

And finally, you will have noticed the new image on this post. I’ve actually gone and changed the cover of Consensus Breaking! I didn’t really like the previous cover. I didn’t like the way Seb was facing away from the viewer, and it didn’t scream “urban fantasy” enough for me, compared to others in my genre. I’ve amended now, courtesy of Novak Illustration. Hope you like it!

Oh, one final thing. A couple of folks have asked what’s next after Auran Chronicles is done. Well, without giving much away, I’m going to have a change from the urban fantasy genre, and have a couple of books lined up in the techno/thriller/horror genre. Thing Michael Crichton meets Stephen King, and you’ll get the picture. I’m going to write a series in the same universe, keeping the same protagonist. The stories will be stand alone, but there will be an underlying mythology underneath that will link them all together. Watch this space!

Not read Message Bearer, the first in the Auran Chronicles? Get it HERE now, only $0.99 (or equivalent) and #free on Kindle Unlimited.

Auran Chronicles #2 is almost here!

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Long time no speak!

It’s been a while since I posted, so thought I’d better raise my head above the parapet to let the world know I’m still alive.

So, what’s been happening? In summary – Consensus Breaking (Auran Chronicles #2).

After finishing the first draft of Consensus Breaking I made the mistake of putting it up for pre-order almost straight away. With hindsight, this was a bit of a mistake, as, although it gave me a deadline to work to, it also hung over me like the Sword of Damocles whilst I cracked on with the inevitable rewrites. The pressure was a bit too much, and caused a few sleepless nights in the process.

Anyway, lesson learned for the future.

And finally, the end is in sight now. Consensus has been through two  bouts of proof reading (thanks everyone!), and it’s with two more proof readers as we speak to try and catch all the errors, typos etc that I always miss.

So – * drum roll* – Consensus Breaking, book 2 of the Auran Chronicles, is officially out on the 27th May, but depending on the changes required from the last proof reads, I may release it earlier.

If you like an urban fantasy mash-up of the Matrix and an adult Harry Potter, then check it out:

The Consensus is broken. Magic is returning to the world…

When Seb and his friends are found by the very mage Families that they’d been seeking, he begins to think that his luck is turning at last, that he’s finally found somewhere to continue the journey he began with the Magistry.

Unfortunately, returning to this secret world is not the homecoming he thought it would be, and when rumors of another faction surface, one that is welcoming the newly awoken without prejudice, Seb is torn between his loyalty to his friends and to those of his fellow magi. He must make a choice. One that will have repercussions far beyond the internal struggles of the Aware.

And across the Shards, a new force is rising, a shadow from before the Weave itself. Long thought defeated, it soon becomes clear that the sheol were just the vanguard of a much greater terror, one that threatens the very foundations of reality.

Consensus Breaking is the second book of the Auran Chronicles, a dark fantasy adventure series from M. S. Dobing.

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Auran Chronicles #2 First Draft – Done!

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Slightly ahead of schedule, and slightly lesser on the word count (85,000 – no doubt rising once I’ve added some meat to the bones!), but I’m pleased to say that the first draft of Auran Chronicles #2, provisionally titled “Consensus Breaking”, is now complete. This definitely calls for several of these:

beer-cocktails

I’m going to take a few days off to begin plotting #3 before finally reopening the drawer and editing this thing into something fit to share. There’s a lot to do, and a lot of referencing book 1 to ensure all the relevant plot lines sync up nicely and other related dependencies, but the core story is there with all the key scenes I’d planned in advance, so it’s in a lot better shape than Message Bearer’s first draft was!

Have a good weekend! 🙂

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Message Bearer On Sale

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As it’s (Saint) Valentine’s Day, and nothing says “I love you” more than buying yourself an action-packed urban fantasy adventure filled with magic, demons and shattered universes, Message Bearer is now on sale for the remainder of February at the unbelievable price of $0.99 (or your local equivalent!).

Forget saying it with love, say it with…

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Now Available: Shattered Realms – A Supernatural Collection

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Greetings on this wet and windy Sunday (at least it is ‘oop north in the UK). I’ve collated my four remaining short pieces (don’t ask about the rest, it’s a sore subject) into a collection that’s now available for purchase on Amazon, and free on Kindle Unlimited.

The reasons why are two fold:

  • I felt that $0.99 was too much to charge for one short story, even if a couple of them are over 10,000 words long. Amazon won’t let me put them on cheaper, otherwise I would.
  • It’s a little snippet of something for people to (hopefully) enjoy before Auran Chronicles #2 comes out in a few months.

Anyway hope you enjoy, if you read any I’d suggest Mirror Man, which is my personal favourite still. Coma Companion is my first ever published piece from way back in 2005 but it still holds a special place in the story vault.

The Blurb:

A collection of four creepy stories exploring various elements of the supernatural, from the subtle, growing dread of Mirror Man to the mind-bending revelations of Cogito Ergo Sum, Shattered Realms is a must for fans of the Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits.

All four stories have been published previously as stand alones, but are now available for the first time as a collection.

The Mirror Man

Steven Cree wakes up at the same time, every night. With every passing day, injuries appear on his body, cracks appear on his walls, and the trees that surround his estate seem to encroach upon his home.

But worst of all, it’s the man in the mirror. The face that was himself, but is slowly changing into that of a stranger.

Cogito Ergo Sum

“…you never wonder how you’ll react to a defining moment in history until you experience it for yourself…”

Gareth Young makes a tweak to the most powerful experiment on earth based on just a hunch. The result is a revelation of the most profound, but is all it seems to be?

The Reality Trip

A routine flight takes a turn for the supernatural as Chris finds himself in an altered reality where the world he knows no longer exists, his identity is in doubt and where terrifying beings hunt him down.

Coma Companion

When Doctor David Baines creates a machine that allows him to directly enter the mind of a comatose patient, he encounters a twisted reality that, rather than being the inner workings of one person’s mind, is actually a limbo world beyond life, and death, in unexpected forms, awaits the unwary.

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Halfway there…

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So I’ve passed the 50,000 word mark now, and am approaching 60,000 at a good pace. With a target of 100,000 words (Message Bearer was 101,000), it’s looking good.

I’m coming into the back end of the middle section now too, which is a great relief. It’s this area that always sags and where the story seems to meander all over the place as it strives towards that end goal. True, I have my “must have” scenes that link the story together, but the path getting there can be a confusing spaghetti-like mess of random scenes, conversations and characters that appear in one chapter only to never be seen again.

Thankfully, the beginning of the end is in sight. I’ve just written a pivotal sequence of scenes that not only ramp up the tension significantly but also explore in much greater detail the mythology of the Auran Chronicles.  There’s a lot of history behind the magi and the Weave, and it’s nice to delve even more into that, especially when it relates directly to our protagonists. Obviously there’s going to be a heavy amount of chopping, changing and re-aligning for the second draft, but I’m happy the end of the story as envisaged in my synopsis is on track, even if all the stuff in between hasn’t quite so stuck to plan 🙂

The problem now, if indeed, it is a problem, is that not only am I almost certain that the story requires four books not three (although I really want to get in done in three) , but in expanding the world significantly in book 2 I’ve also introduced a new bunch of characters, of which at least two I’d love to spin off into their own series, or at least, to steal a Disney term, an Auran Chronicles “anthology” story or two. Aside from Cade, the half-daemon Brotherhood warrior who so deserves his own story (mental note – Auran Chronicles: Born of Blood), we also meet Shimmer, a Borderguard from the barren lands that exists between shards (the shattered worlds of the Auran Chronicles), who has a fascinating back story of his own that I can’t wait to explore.

So all in all, definitely a good problem, the challenge is, which one to write first?

Anyway, must dash, last night I left Seb several hundred feet up in the air with the ground rushing to meet him. I didn’t know how he was going to get out of this one, so just left it like that. It seemed a good idea at the time, but as I stare at the flashing cursor I’m not so sure. The joys of writing I guess!