Tag Archives: Literary fiction

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Meet AG Fredericks

As I write this, my kids are mourning the end of summer and preparing for their first day of school tomorrow. So before I head off to wipe a few tears and pack a few lunches, here is this week’s featured author in my Debut Author Q&A series: AG Fredericks.

Name: AG Fredericks

Name of book: The Troy Standard

Book genre: Literary fiction

Date published: May 5, 2012

Publisher: CreateSpace

What is your book about? This is always the most difficult question for me, because the book touches on so many themes and topics, and I just want to get into all of them. The proverbial “nutshell” is never adequate enough for an author, and it’s always tempting to give away too much. But I’ll give it a stab.

The book follows the life of Troy Mulligan as he works hard at achieving a perfectly honest and noble life after an awakening of sorts. In his search for fulfillment, he slowly realizes that he has been at the mercy of the world around him, and he desperately wants to be in control of his own life. As part of this search, he donates his time and money toward charitable projects. Over time, he develops a belief that the base form of finance, the U.S. dollar itself, is unstable and could potentially lead to dangerous circumstances that people just haven’t realized because their heads are just too far in the sand.

A billionaire philanthropist/rogue investor approaches Troy with a plan – to establish a new global currency using a solid base of precious metals. Troy is intrigued and feels that this project may very well be his calling in life. But there are a lot of powerful and ruthless people standing in their way who do not want to relinquish their control over the status quo. Hilarity ensues. (Not really, I just love saying that.)

Why did you want to write this book? I am deeply disturbed when I look at our country’s political and economic situation and the way we arrived at where we are – from both sides, left and right. In particular, I am fascinated about the history of money and its current state in world affairs. The “history of money” seems like it would be a very important topic for everyone to understand. Yet not many people do.

Continue reading →

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The Results Are In! Your Favorite Genre Fiction Is…

Fantasy, baby!

According to our informal little survey, where we asked you to vote for your favorite genre fiction, Fantasy led the way with 23 percent of votes. All week long, Fantasy and Science Fiction were neck and neck until Fantasy pulled ahead in the final days of the week-long poll. The complete results are as follows:

Fantasy: 23%

Science Fiction: 18%

Crime/Thriller: 14%

Literary Fiction: 13%

Mystery: 10%

Action/Adventure: 8%

Romance: 6%

Detective: 5%

Horror: 2%

Western: 0%

Wow, nobody voted Western. Not even Clint Eastwood fans! And truth be told, I was surprised to see Fantasy top the list. I thought that Crime Fiction or Romance would be Number One. Very interesting. And thank you to everyone who took time to vote! :)

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Writing Tip #49

Keep readers hooked, from beginning to end. In The New York Times Book Review today, author Tom Perrotta said this:

“I have definitely accepted the aesthetic principle, that you should be more interested toward the end of a book than you are in the beginning. Which is not always the case in literary fiction.”

I totally agree. Perrotta calls it a “primal narrative engagement,” which I think is something all writers strive for no matter the genre — to create a book that, despite the constant tuggings of children, a household and a career, just can’t be put down by readers, a book that not only sustains interest, but elevates it and, if it’s really successful, even exceeds expectations by the end.

A tall order, for sure.

So how do writers do this? Damned if I know (how’s that for a tip, ha!). But I do know that as a reader (and perhaps a writer as well) I come across books all the time that seem to fizzle out near the end. I felt a bit that way about Amy Waldman’s The Submission, a debut novel of literary fiction that I truly enjoyed, but toward the end I felt that I was less enthused (although, for me, the book was ultimately saved by a single line in the epilogue). Generally, though, I think readers’ expectations change throughout the course of a novel, and toward the end readers need the intensity, or the something, ramped up a notch in order to sustain even the same interest.

With a genre like mysteries or thrillers, this may be easier to do, since near the end these stories tend to pivot in new and unusual directions — they culminate in a chase of sorts, mysteries are unraveled, bad guys are discovered and pursued, expectations are flipped on their head. I like to think of readers of Baby Grand, my thriller, as boarding a train that’s just about to pull out of a station and riding the train as it slowly builds steam so that by the end the train is going full speed and the reader is hanging horizontally off the rails of the caboose desperately wanting to hang on and see where things lead.

Hopefully, that’s enough to pry readers away from bill-paying and laundry.