~Blog Tour~ The China Dogs by Sam Master (GIVEAWAY!!!)

 

Title: The China Dogs Author: Sam Master Genre: Thriller Publish Date: August 19, 2014 Publisher: Witness Impulse an imprint of HarperCollins  

~ Synopsis ~

Man’s best friend is about to become America’s worst enemy... When a sudden rash of deadly canine attacks hits the greater Miami area, Lieutenant “Ghost” Walton, Special Ops, takes little notice. Blame it on the heat, a rare disease, or the fact that people just don’t know how to take care of their pets. But when the body count rises, and the perimeter of blood and carnage spreads wider and wider, into the farthest reaches of Miami-Dade county, Ghost has no choice but to pay attention. Doggedly, he tries to uncover the link between these lethal incidents, but he doesn’t count on falling for a sassy out-of-towner with a dark past, nor does he expect to stumble onto a plot that threatens national security.  

            

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Chapter 1 

 Gobi Desert, Northeastern China The silver buses drive across the land of endless sand. Onboard are prisoners from China’s notorious Death Row. Rapists, serial murderers, and child abusers. Twenty men about to be given an extraordinary chance to live. To wipe the slate clean. The long vehicles that carry them are equipped with lethal electrocution equipment, state-of-the-art technology designed to deliver on-the-spot executions. The inmates can choose to stay on board and be quickly put to death; their organs harvested there and then and sold to those needing donations. Or—when the doors swing open—they can run for their lives. Run into one of the largest deserts in the world and take their chances with what lies out there. Air brakes hiss, sand sprays, and the five buses come to a syn- chronized stop in the blistering heat. Three army copters hover in the sweltering air. Military bosses watch like circling vultures. On cue, automated locks clunk and the big doors of the ve- hicles slide open. Clouds of hot sand rise as the bare feet of desperate men jump and run from the vehicles. No one remains. Six miles away—six miles north, south, east, and west—the doors of four armored personnel carriers also open . General Fu Zhang peers down like God. Watches life and death play out. People reduced to black dots, scattered like dung beetles. He can’t help but think it would be better for the men if they’d stayed on the buses. Their deaths would be less painful. The leader of China’s armed forces follows each and every fa- tality on his video monitor. Nonchalantly, he waves a hand to the pilot to return to base. He is pleased. Seldom has he seen such efficient slaughter. Such economic carnage. Project Nian is nearing completion.

 

About the Author

SAM MASTERS is a pseudonym for an author who has written seven books, including a bestseller that has sold in more than 30 countries. This is his first novel for Witness.    

10 Writing Rules That Got Me Published

There’s no right way to write.

Almost everyone has different ways of getting from the first letter to the final punctuation mark.

I know a best selling author, who when she thinks up a great phrase or a single character or just one good idea, immediately goes into hibernation and begins to pen her next thriller.

She locks herself away, cuts herself off from family and friends and hammers out the complete first version of the novel in under a month. She barely reviews anything that she writes before she’s finished and only adds expert detail and research facts after she’s completed the first draft. 

Eating, drinking, sleeping (and many other normal functions) are severely sacrificed in the all out pursuit of the completed first draft.  It takes immense guts, self-believe and sacrifice to do it that way.  You also have to have either an incredibly understanding family or a very solitary lifestyle, plus enough money not to be holding down a full-time 9-5 job somewhere.

I also know writers who plot every chapter from beginning to end. They write an incredibly detailed synopsis of more than 20,000 words, before they even start the book.  They know every twist and turn of plot and every cough and shout of all their characters before they’ve even written down the title on the first page.

Personally, I fall between the two styles.

I like to plan, and I like to deviate. 

I like to shape the characters, but once they’ve come alive in the story I let them shape a little of their own destinies. 

I also find that new characters and plot twists tend to emerge organically as the story develops so I write a chapter or two on a new document before incorporating it into the main draft I’m working on.

Anyway, enough of the background blahdy blah. Here are my personal ten rules.

1. Plot – Know the beginning, middle and end of your story really well before you begin and trust yourself to fill in the other parts as you go along.
2. Setting – Fiction reading is escapism, so make sure that you give the escapees a sense of where they are going, what their destination looks like and of course what century and season of the year it’s all happening in.
3. Research – even if you’re writing about something you know really well check your facts and look for odd and interesting detail that adds information to the entertainment that you’re serving up.
4. Characters – imagine them as real people, cut out pictures of what they might look like and how they dress, write down what they believe in, what they love and hate.
5. Dialogue – give your characters a voice, make sure it differs from those other players n your story, ensure they have their own vocabulary and it reflects their backgrounds and stories.
6. Clothes – Don’t forget to dress your characters, such descriptions help paint the scene and give great references to your readers.
7. Review – make sure you review the last thing you wrote before you start the next session so that you are in the same frame of mind when you carry on the story and you can feel the moods of the characters and the pace of the plot.
8. Word Count – Resist seeing how many words you’ve written for as long as possible.  A completed book is about 100,000 words. With your own revisions and rewrites, plus those from your editor you may well have to write somewhere towards a quarter of a million words.  If you start clicking the Word Count button on day one you’ll find it’s like staring up to the top of a very steep hill when you are on your bike.  Much better to keep your head down for as long as possible and only look up when you really, really have to.
9. Emotion – the best way to bring characters to life is by sharing how they feel, by conveying their loves and hates, their hopes and fears, their passions and pains.
10. Friends and Family – Unless they are successful writers, agents or publishers then don’t’ show them your work and don’t listen to their views until you’re done.  What they think doesn’t matter. They’re most likely to lead you astray with too much praise or too much criticism. Remember, you started writing because you wanted to, not because of someone else’s thoughts. Finish your book on the same terms.  

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Five BlueFire Downloads

 

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