Another sneak peek at the sequel to No Wings Attached:

While No Wings Attached is put on hold, being currently corrected, I'm using the time to crack on with the sequel. Here's a small excerpt of Chapter Eleven, first unedited draft.  I'd love your opinions, so fire away. ;-)

I struggle and hiss, stomping and kicking in order to step on a foot of the guy whose arms are still locked around me. He curses and tightens his grip.

�Let go of me!� With as much force I can muster I knock back my head, hoping to smash his nose. Pain jolts through me.

He winces and pushes me forward. �You bitch!�

I open my eyes and see... nothing. It's dark, pitch black and it smells rank, like rotten moss, I hear water dripping, echoing from seemingly close walls. Knowing he's probably behind me, I carefully feel the ground under my feet, trying to get some more distance between us. Something wet touches my face and I bite my lip to suppress a scream, if I'm basically blind he won't be able to see either. What do I do, what do I do? What does he want? Am I allowed to use my powers to protect me? My heart thuds so heavily in my chest, I want to throw up. With my arms stretched out I inch forward.

Another curse from him. �That fucking bitch got my lip. It's bleeding.�

�Where is she now?� a second voice asks.

�Don't know, we'll find out in a second.�

I stop and try to breathe as calmly as I can. Suddenly, a blue light flashes past me, crushing into the rocks before me; instinctively, I duck and wrap my arms around my head. The dark force!

�There! Darian, now!�

I throw myself flat onto the floor and in hope they will aim to the left, I roll to the right, squeezing my eyes shut. From what I can hear, another blue light ball hisses over me and the sound of pieces of the rock wall falling on the ground echoes through the cave. I blink and hastily crawl further to the right.

�One more time,� whisper under my breath. I'm furious and willing to fight back, �go on, only one more time.�

Again, I'm blinded and quickly looking to the side, I stretch our my hands, palms up. Oh, please let it work, I don't want to die!

The blue ball dances in the air, illuminating the place. As I suspected, it's small and water runs along the walls. I turn to my kidnappers and gasp. The bold guy! A much smaller figure stands next to him, legs apart, hands stemmed in the side, glaring at me. I could swear I've seen him before, but I can't remember where. At the club, when Sam was there?

�You?� I address the bold guy. �What do you want from me?�

He watches the blue ball's dancing. �Just playing a bit. Thought you might like that.�

I continue to stare at him. The tingling in my hands and the pressure on them stops and the ball explodes, leaving a mini firework behind. For moment I freeze and lock eyes again with the bold guy. With one quick move of his hand another blue ball appears in the palm of his hand and before I can react, he throws it in my direction. The pressure is much stronger and I can't hold against it.

�Please, stop! What have I done to you?� My voice breaks off at the end of the question and I have both, fear and fury raging in me. I'm going to die!

�Stop!� a third voice barks, followed by a stream of orange-red light directed at the two other guys. They try to fight back, but the figure now stepping in front of me is far too strong for them. I recognise the long leather coat and heavy boots. Sam?

Are your scenes believable?

For most of us who write fiction it's plain fun; you can create a world, a story, characters and scenes, anything you would like to do or anyone you would like to be or meet. It's fantastic, isn't it?

So far, so good. But since we're not writing from memory, meaning something that happened to us, we rely on imagination. A lot. Especially in genres like Fantasy or Science Fiction we have to make sure that it's believable, realistic and logical. In a world that doesn't exist, the reader wants to be convinced that everything that's happening could be reality. Let's take my novel No Wings Attached as an example. My character Celia hears a voice, she turns around and looks at different people, anyone could have said something, as it always happens in public places, either in the supermarket, in the park or in the pub. If she would have been at home and hear voices, it would take the suspense away, make it unrealistic. Well, maybe not entirely, but then she'd be a case for the straight jacket.

Recently, I edited a friend's manuscript; he had a character in need to get out of a dangerous situation and the possibility to do so via a device, but my friend let his character hesitate for ten seconds, which would have been enough to be killed, so I recommended him to let him hesitate for only two seconds, which would be enough to shout a command and escape. Try counting slowly till ten, it's a long time.
Little things like that let readers stumble.

If you have a character that can jump (beam) from place to place and it's not wise to let him or her appear in a public place and walk around as if nothing happened. I bet you would be rather surprised, if not shocked if someone appears out of thin air in front of you. So check on how you would react and transfer it into your scene. Screaming, kids pointing at the person, fainting, running away in panic, people taking pictures, etc.
Think Superman, who always appears in an empty street. 

Same goes for books like romance or crime, thriller.
In case you  have a murder, what would happen in reality? How would the procedure be?
When an airplane drops out of the sky after one engine exploded and it's torn into half, what would the scenario be like? Would the air-hostess really make an announcement that they're about to die and everyone needs to remain calm? Try to imagine how naked  panic creeps up the passengers and crew, try to hear them screaming, crying, reaching for their safety kits.

The husband has a stroke in the shower, the wife comes in and finds him on the floor bleeding heavily because he's hit his head hard. Instead of calling an ambulance, she's trying to wake him up, cries and strokes his face.
Would you behave like that? Of course not, you would do it the other way round: first call the ambulance, then attend to the person.

If you try to feel and think like your character, then you should be able to make your scenes real, meaning fiction turns into reality for the reader, and that's what he or she asks for.

Breathe life into your characters and make them 3-dimensional

We often have difficulties to connect with a character; we can't put our fingers on it, but something is missing. In many cases it's the description or interaction with others. Real people have many sides to them, they are happy, they are sad, they are grumpy or even angry at times. Think about your friends; they have traits we love and traits you probably could do without, but all together, they make them complete - real.
Like the Rubik Cube to the left, we see them from different angles. The goal is to get them walking and talking like in a movie. Describing scenes is important, but so are our characters.

Looks are only one thing and I've already explained how to do it best here. But this is only one dimension. What about their behaviour? Is your MC a calm person, polite, reserved, moody, loud, withdrawn, laughs a lot, cries easily? You get the picture. It's important and very handy to have a good think about how your character should be and stay, if possible. Consistency is key, unless they go off the rails and begin to change.
The reason being is that especially in writing, you need the reader to sympathise with your character - good or bad - so every move is understandable and acceptable. The second your reader thinks: why would s/he do that? That's absolutely stupid! you've dragged your reader out of the story and most likely lost him or her.

I use my character's thoughts to get across their reasons for doing things, or I let them mutter, I let them call their friends and either rant or seek advice. I let them meet and judge each other.

For example. Celia is a very good friend to Emily, Tom witnesses it and really appreciates the trait of hers.

It's also good let them have a habit, like blowing a lock out of the face, biting fingernails, running fingers through the hair, rocking back and forth, wrinkling the forehead a specific way, make funny noises when nervous or excited. Those are all things that are noticed by others and makes the character more alive.
Let them interact differently with your other characters. You won't be the same with your boss as you would be with your best mate. Let them have a particular phrase they use and let others react to it.
Has the person a pet? A love for being colour co-ordinated, is the person a neat-freak or messy, there's so much to play around with. Just look at your friends and see how different they are, that's a great way to start with building real characteres that grab your hand and tow you with them through the book.

On writing the first draft

I recently read a blog post from an author who sort of 'insisted' to write a draft in one go before editing it. First, I don't like being told what to do and second, that technique might work for her, but not for me. I've never really been like that, write like there's no tomorrow and edit when you've completed the book.
Even with No Wings Attached, which was my first novel, I wrote at night and edited the next day, then sent it to my friend who returned it with comments, so I could revise. I don't know any different and it works well for me. I still managed to have the 'first draft' ready after 2.5 months. Needless to say that my friend did a light edit and I had to learn a lot about writing, which I didn't know back then. It almost cost me the novel as I wanted to throw it into the Thames after the 10th round of editing. I cut out 40k, changed bits here and there, rewrote complete scenes, etc. I grew very tired of it.
Now, two years later, I still work the same way: I write, then edit the next day. The only difference is that I don't have my friend going through it chapter by chapter and that my writing is much tighter, so I end up with a pretty polished first draft. I also write slower, which means, I think about what I'm writing, I try to avoid repetition, he said, she said where it's clear who speaks, control my use of adverbs and make sure everything flows. That's my way of working on the first draft.
I'm 20k into the sequel and it already took me as long as the complete first book, but then, when I'm done in about two months, I need to go through it maybe two more times and it's ready for proofing. But 4 months writing and 1 months editing is much quicker than writing 2.5 months writing and 2 years of editing.

My advice for anyone out there is: do whatever suits you best. :-)