I’m still working on the finishing touches of my current book. I’ve written and rewritten the final chapters a couple of times. One thing I know for sure is that it can’t be easy for my protagonists to get through it. If it is too easy, the reader may not enjoy it.
The struggles they face bring out their true character traits even more than the rest of the events of the story. Just when they think they have the upper hand, things change. They may have a moment where it shifts from their success being certain, to a situation that puts everything in question. That’s happened a few times in my life, but usually books are a little more extreme in the reversal that happens. Books may also seem a little more clearly defined in those stages, compared with life.
One reason I enjoy reading is to see how characters react in situations that put them at the edge of what they can do. It gives me hope, and maybe some experience, vicariously. As I read some of those intense portions of a good book, I am affected by it, making the success of the good ending that much better and enjoyable. That’s what I work toward in my books.
Life is not always easy, but taking time to shut out everything else and read or write each day, is how I work through the challenges. Many times, I come through the other side of a problem, solved or not, and realize what it taught me. We all grow through our choices and our experiences.
Check out some of my books on Amazon.
My fantasy, A Map, a Mage, and a Sacrifice, is set in a world with limited technology, but where sacrifice is a necessary element to magical power. The greater the pain and suffering, the greater the magical power generated. The few mages in power use voluntary sacrifice of the citizens to generate power they use to protect and defend the empire. But their rule may be coming to a close.
Malignance, my third book in my time travel series that began with Resonance and Dissonance, is on Amazon as a kindle and a paperback. That was a fun series to write, and for now, it is completed. I have also placed all three books from that series into one volume titled The Machina of Time.
If you’re looking for a science fiction story, try my book The Promise of Dust, which takes place in a cloud city floating in the atmosphere of Venus. Or Progenitor’s Legacy: Deceit, which takes place many years in the future on a tidally locked world that orbits a red dwarf and has been reached by humanity in their search for the alien progenitors who seeded the galaxy with nano machines.
If a young adult science fiction is more to your liking, check out my series This New Earth, that starts with Demons of a Dead World and Secrets of a Dead World.
If you are looking for a young adult fantasy, check out my book The Threads Unbound.
DANIEL R. BURKHARD 