As my first fictional book, I'm wrestling with issues around narrative and tense. Specifically, who narrates the book and what tense should it be narrated in.

Here's what I've decided to do. After reading some articles online about these topics, I'm not sure if it is ideal, although it doesn't seem incorrect.

I have two narrators in the book. I've decided to use a slightly different approach for each.

The primary narrator is Detective Rob Stack. I'm using First-person present tense for Rob.

The secondary narrator is the omniscient viewer. She narrates all of the scenes that Rob is not around to see. I've decided that the omniscient viewer should narrate in the Third-person, past tense.

This way, it will be easy for the reader to tell who is narrating a scene - Rob, or not-Rob.

I've thought about changing the book so that Rob can be in all of the scenes - but this is far too limiting for the plot's development. I've thought about just using the omniscient narrator - but that has character development limitations I don't like as well.

Anyway, I just spent the last few hours going through the entire book to be sure that the tense is correct for each scene, using my strategy above.

(When I'm writing, I'm not very good at sticking to the correct tense. I'm sure I still have tense issues that will need to be caught in edit.)

Anyway, if you'd like to download the version with tense corrected - it is online now!

Wow. I can't believe it's only been 23 days since I started writing this book, and now the first draft is complete!

The book comes in at just over 51,000 words. Not a very long book I recognize, but just the right size to make a movie. ;-)

There are some improvements I may make to the book in the near future - adding sub-plots, getting a proper edit pass done, that kind of thing. But for now - it is time to celebrate!

If you haven't had an opportunity to read the book yet, this is the version you want to read. I've been hearing good things - I do hope you enjoy the story. Let me know what you think.

Everything finally comes together with this chapter folks. This chapter was the most fun to write.

Just one more chapter to go, and then I'm done with the first draft!

Enjoy.

Wow - I'm a writing machine! This is the second chapter in two days - and I only have two more chapters to go!

Thank goodness, as I'm in my last week of my sabbatical.

Phew!

As always, if you are reading - I would greatly appreciate if you could drop me a line, or fill out the poll with your thoughts.

Thanks, and enjoy!

Another exciting chapter. The end is near - only three chapters left to write!

I'm excited to be almost finished (my draft release anyway - which I will call the 'Alpha Release').

At the same time, I'm also finding it difficult to write. I know how I want most things to go - can't this book finish itself?  :-)

Don't worry - i'm pretty sure I'll get it done this week.

Hit the Poll - let me know what you think of the book so far!

Should Dana trust Rob with her secret?

Should Rob trust Dana with his?

We will know soon...

The book has been updated to include Chapter 9. Enjoy!

Why are the bad guys creating zombies? What was Dana's picture doing up in Kelowna?

These questions are answered in Chapter 8 - and more!

I took a couple of days off from writing to enjoy Maui.  It was quite nice! But now I'm back at it.

I have been keeping a long list of things to improve in the book. I've been trying to to revist old chapters much - have to keep moving forward, or I'll never finish!

But for those of you that have been giving me suggestions, ideas, and even edits - let it be known that I will eventually be going back to past chapters to clean them up.

Thanks!

Derick

Learn more about zombies from Doctor Zachman, and the story behind Steve's death.

Dana gets to kick a little zombie a**, and we learn more about who might be behind it all...

The plot is starting to come together... connections are being made.

And we get to see more of Jake in action!

What will Rob and Dana do with their new information?