Last night I killed a man, just to watch him die.
Granted, the victim was fictitious, and he had to die to get the newest Shinobi Mystery off the ground. (That’s #5, if you’re counting – the fourth one is finished and set to release next summer from Seventh Street Books.) Even so, that’s how I spent my evening.
The opening pages of any new book are among the most difficult ones to write (for me, only the last two pages are harder), and that difficulty expands exponentially when the book is set in a foreign time and place, and also in the middle of a series. In addition to drawing the reader in, and orienting him or her in the setting, series books have a couple of special hurdles to overcome in the opening scene.
I’m talking a little more about those challenges, and how I overcame them in the third Shinobi Mystery, Flask of the Drunken Master, over at B.K. Stevens’ blog, The First Two Pages.
I hope you’ll click over and see!