Tag: writing

Publication Updates

Available Soon: Flesh Party

Posted on by Jordan Thiery

Cover Reveal!

Flesh Party: Five Monstrous Horror Stories is complete, and will be available for purchase very soon.

Where can you purchase? For the month of November, the paperback and dustcover editions of the book will be offered exclusively through Silver Dawn Books in Grand Forks, North Dakota! You can contact the store at any time to request a pre-order. The paperback will be available for $13.99 and the dustcover will be available for $29.99.

Bonus: Any books ordered through Silver Dawn Books will be custom signed by me (and they do offer shipping).

The eBook will release in December for $2.99, alongside the paperback ($13.99) and printed hardcover ($21.99) offerings on Amazon.com. Downside: You’ll have to wait for a signing event to get these versions of the book signed.

I’m excited for everyone to read these monstrous horror stories!

FLESH PARTY

Ghosts, Werewolves, Vampires, Lake Monsters, Cosmic Creatures, and the Dead. Monsters are everywhere, hiding in the dark waiting for their time in the light. Included in this collection:

A GREEN DRESS IN TATTERS
Matt’s world has been shattered by a recent breakup, sending him fleeing to a peculiar hotel to clear his head. As he seeks refuge, he sees things that can’t be real. The apparitions grow increasingly vivid and insistent, blurring the line between what is real, and what lies beyond.

BENEATH THE SKIN
Warren joins his family and friends for a weekend camping trip. At first everything seems fine. But as the night wears on, everyone’s true selves emerge, and who Warren was may not survive the night.

FLESH PARTY
Jason is looking for a late night hook up with a pretty girl. He might just get lucky. However, while soft skin may be on the menu, it might not be the kind he had in mind… and it might be his.

UNDER THIN ICE
Liam’s brother died by drowning. At least that’s what everyone seems to believe. Liam knows what really happened though, and he intends to prove everyone wrong. Because he knows… whatever’s under the ice has sinister intentions.

A STITCH IN TIME
Mallory is in a race against time, battling a terminal lung disease that threatens to take her life. Before she succumbs to her illness, she must save her granddaughter from the creature that’s haunted her since she was a young woman. With the clock ticking, will Mallory find a way to secure her granddaughter’s safety? Or will the creature win?

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About My Writing

A Sliver For My Characters

Posted on by Jordan Thiery

Where does my inspiration for stories come from, and how do I come up with these crazy stories? It’s one of the most common questions I get, and it’s one of my favorite to answer.

Let me explain.

Each of my stories (as all stories should) has two conflict components to it:
1. A Character Conflict (or the actual story)
2. A Plot Conflict (what guides each character to change)

Our Greatest Enemy as a collection was heavily focused on the former, which is why I consider it psychological horror with supernatural elements.

Discussing each conflict in more detail:

A Character Conflict or Internal Conflict

    So how do I come up with a character conflict? Easy! I take a sliver of my own personality and I blow it out of proportion.

    In Belt, I borrowed from my time as a child where I felt I was stuck between fighting parents (sorry, mom – love you). It’s a small aspect of my past, but it’s there. I took it and I maximized it to create William. In Wrapped in Silk, my character struggles with anger and depression, both things that I, too, deal with from time to time. Sometimes my anger scares me, because I don’t like to be an angry person. Everyone gets a little angry, but Erik… he’s a lot angry, and that’s scary to me. For Inside a Concrete Box, I borrowed a ton of myself to create Arthur, a dad struggling with the loss of his own father and learning what it means to be a dad.

    In each of these examples, I found a piece of myself that I was struggling with at some point in time, little conflicts that everyone deals with day to day that make up their own character, and I made a new person out of it. And thus, each character is a sliver of myself.

    A Plot Conflict or External Conflict

    This is where the horror genre comes into play. This is where I get creative and come up with something fun and catchy, but important, too. The Plot Conflict has to drive the character from a state of conflict to a state of resolution. A good story must have a character story, as well as a good plot that drives that story (this is my biggest complaint with fiction today – a good deal of it is all plot and lacks character).

    In The Transfiguration, Sam is coming to terms with how he was rejected by his family (Character Conflict). The driving force behind him finding resolution to that conflict was his love for Riley, the family dog. In Our Greatest Enemy, Adam is dealing with loneliness. The driving force or plot to him finding resolution to this conflict was (I’m not going to spoil anything here) the world ending event and the conversation with his father.

    In summary, how do I come up with these crazy ass stories? It usually starts with the fun plot, or an idea for something creepy. In each of my stories from this collection at least, the plot ideas came first. Sometimes while alone in the shower (Wrapped in Silk), sometimes during conversations with friends (The Transfiguration) From there, I come up with a character with a matching conflict that needs to be resolved.

    So when you’re reading these stories, try to guess which sliver of myself is hiding between the lines!

    If you haven’t read the story yet, pick it up on Amazon. Free for Kindle Unlimited readers.
    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D7QW7VQ5

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