Writing Tip: Not Your Protagonist

 Writing tip.

There are a multitude of protagonists. Those that should not grace your story are

the following:

    1. The incompetent.

    2. The passive.

    3.  The over thinker.

The hero or heroine must not only do things, but must drive the story's plot. The above three types of hero or heroine are failures. 

How can a good mystery be solved if the protagonist has no detecting skill? He or she can't.

How can a story be entertaining if the protagonist sits in the audience waiting for the action on stage when he or she should be the lead actor on the stage reciting witty lines, tapping out innovative dance steps or pouring out a wheelbarrow full of emotion.

How can a good story be only in one's head. Yes, a hero or heroine can dream, or plot out their next actions, but the energy rays are ignited by outward actions, not small electrical impulses only alive within the protagonist's skull.

Measure the story you're writing or reading against the above. There's a trust you'll enjoy yourself more if you find the kernel and discard the chaff.  

Special Year-End Savings

 To celebrate the end of 2020, three Author Donan Berg e-books will be discounted Fifty (50) per cent.

A fourth will be double that, i.e., Amanda will be free.

The discount period begins tomorrow, Friday, December 18, 2020, and ends December 31, 2020.

All e-books are at Smashwords.com . 

Your discounted price will be applied at checkout. You need take no additional steps, for example, knowing a coupon code. Thus, your checking out with one of these special e-books will be no mystery, even if the books are.

Here's the links to the e-books featured above:

www.smashwords.com/books/view/398225 (Adolph's Gold)

www.smashwords.com/books/view/500753 (The Bones Dance Foxtrot)

www.smashwords.com/books/view/1042160 (A Body To Bones)

www.smashwords.com/books/view/405595 (Amanda)

  🎅  Happy Holidays. Please Enjoy.

Special Preorder: Aria's Bayou Child, a thriller by Author Donan Berg

Preorder before September 2020 general release

Aria's Bayou Child e-book is available in multiple formats at this link:  www.smashwords.com/books/view/1031889 or click here.

Author Donan Berg's latest novel, Aria's Bayou Child, A Thriller, will be available at retailers this September 2020 in e-book and paperback.

Here's a descriptive preview:

Aria Gleason battles the unexpected and endures untold physical pain and mental torture in her search for her bayou-born child. She learns no motherless child flourishes and no mother's journey embraces sanity until she breaks the chains of false imprisonment and hugs a beating heart to her breast.

After she's paroled, Aria's life becomes an obsession to find her stolen child. Action packed and suspenseful, readers will keep turning pages. A prison guard who knows the disturbing truth strives to persuade, and then threatens, Aria to abandon her child.

Driven to succeed, Aria has only her resolve to go with the GED certificate she earned in prison. Aria's Bayou Child  explores themes of maternal love, friendship and family tied together with gripping suspense in true thriller fashion.

Live the terror no mother should bear. Inspired by true events. Aria is a young mother whose travails and triumph are richly drawn in a world of derring-do that unfolds a dastardly scheme. Her every belief will be challenged and shaken.

Be mesmerized by Author Donan Berg, a First Place Gold Award winner.

Aria's Bayou Child set to be released in September 2020.

Your copy awaits. Act today to pre-order. 

Author Donan Berg e-books on sale.

E-books by Author Donan Berg discounted 25 to 50% at www.smashwords.com.

These discounts will last for a limited time.

Thank you to all who visit.  All e-books available.  Free samples..

Your review is appreciated.

.E-books include Donan Berg's Gold Award First Place Romance, "One Paper Heart."

For exact details, visit Donan Berg e-books .

Five-star review of Donan Berg's novel Into the Dark

A Complex Mystery That Keeps You Guessing

Very late in Donan Berg's  exciting crime mystery Into the Dark, a line metaphorically serves as emblematic of our protagonist's quest for what often appears to be the murkiest of truths: "His weakened flashlight batteries strained to illuminate the unknown."

From the exciting opening, Donan Berg's Into the Dark relentlessly builds a thrilling mystery centering around election tampering, a stack of money, a counterfeiting operation, and a dead body. In order to reveal the truth, Sheriff Jonas McHugh finds himself compulsively returning to a rustic cabin with hidden compartments and trap doors and to a cave that is the source of more than its share of secrets and disturbing activity. As Jonas simultaneously investigates the money and counterfeiting issues, the election fraud angle, and the death of operative Ed Telling, the reader follows along; plot threads first complicate and then eventually align to great satisfaction.

Methodically and doggedly, Jonas edges toward insight. "Bonnie's statement of the obvious unleashed within Jonas a mental lightning bolt to illuminate what had been dark." A novel smartly riddled with Biblical quotes and allusions, Into the Dark follows Jonas's journey toward enlightenment, one that paradoxically will send him into a fair share of hellish, subterranean places.

At the heart of the mystery is the beautiful, mercurial Kayla, for whom Jonas possesses contrary feelings of attraction and mistrust. Her presence and Iowa's political environment's home of high-stake caucuses inform the novel with layers of compromised motivations and machinations.

Throughout Berg peppers the story with terse phrasing that echoes Jonas's mindset: "Telling's killer is still free. Bogus bills infest Silver County wallets. Unfed, unclothed teens flood rural roads."

Berg's skillful sorting out Jonas's complicated thoughts as he reaches disturbing conclusions makes Into the Dark a smart, engaging novel.

Michael Hartnett, author of The Blue Rat.

Sheriff Jonas McHugh returns in Into the Dark

Sheriff Jonas McHugh returns in June 2019 with a new troubles.

At a rural cabin owned by a Silver County political widow Jonas discovers
an Iowa Caucus ballot box filled with U.S. currency the day after the caucus
vote shows eight GOP precincts untabulated and the cast ballots missing.

A torn note threatens a bomb plot. One presidential hopeful campaign manager
lays murdered as Jonas faces the barrel of a loaded thirty-ought-six rifle.

Jonas unravels sinister and human motives far greater than greed and power.

Known for entertaining mystery and heartwarming romance, Author Berg infuses
suspense into mystery with a page-turner plot. Sharp prose with more than one
meaning hones and deepens the robust dialogue of well-drawn, rounded characters.

Coming June 25, 2019. Into the Dark will be in Trade Paperback and E-book.
Expect preorders to be available.

Donan Berg's novel Alexa's Gold achieves 89 days as most popular.

It makes one humble.

Alexa's Gold, a romantic thriller, has achieved a record eighty-nine (89) consecutive days at the most popular novel on the Authorsden.com website. Click here to access Donan Berg's page: Authorsden.com .

In fact, four Author Donan Berg novels occupy four of the five top most popular novel spots. (December 27, 2018 Update: novels  Alexa's Gold, A Body To Bones, Abbey Burning Love, One Paper Heart. All are romances, except the mystery novel A Body To Bones.)

Alexa's Gold becomes the second Author Donan Berg novel to reach the highest pinnacle of popularity at Authorsden.com . As of December 27, Donan Berg novels are four of the top five.

The first was A Body To Bones. After rising to number one in July, 2018, A Body To Bones has in the past month challenged Alexa's Gold, rising as high as a runnerup.  Today, December 27, 2018, the former number one still ranks number two.

Both novels have free excerpts and signed copy availability at Authorsden.com .

Joining Alexa's Gold and A Body To Bones as top most popular books, all genres, are romances Abbey Burning Love and One Paper Heart.  The three romances are the top romances at Authorsden.com. Adolph's Gold, a police procedural mystery has ranked as high as number nine this December. (On December 27, it's number 12.) One Paper Heart was a 2016 Feathered Quill Gold Award First Place romance.

To all who have read either excerpts, entire stories or accessed any one of the five novels, thank you.

If you wish to enjoy these novels, there's an easy remedy.