Got a new review of my first novel Dothan

It took The Romance Studio a whole year to get around to it, but here it is:

Dothan
Justin Murphy
Historical romance
Available from Epstein Publishing
ISBN: 80339-041210-125333-15
December 2004

Aggie Thurston has returned to Dothan since the soap opera she was writing for has shut down production in the New York area. Since the events of 9/11 she considers retiring and settling down. She walks into the local coffee shop in Dothan and notices an old friend from her past. A very handsome man that was much more than a friend.
Leo Wexler is surprised when he sees his old girlfriend enter the coffee chop. He goes to her and they immediately kiss as if they are teenagers. Aggie Thurston is the famous soap opera writer, whereas he is a former wrestling promoter chased out of business by a huge national promoter. Neither knows what the future holds for them in Dothan but for now they only wish to spend time reminiscing.

DOTHAN is a story that begins with two people meeting years later but now events have happened where everyone’s life suddenly changes, not just Aggie’s and Leo’s. It questions what the future holds since their life has been disarrayed. The story surrounds a town traumatized by the events of September 11, 2001. It was a time of sorrow, of chaos, and a feeling of uneasiness for many. Leo and Aggie are only two characters in the town that must find away to solve their problems. Do we still live in a free country or are there others still lurking to take our freedom from us? It was as if we had no life anymore, as if we were at the mercy of others.

Mr. Murphy gives us a glimpse into other people’s lives and what they endured at this time. He enlightens us with a town and their grave expressions and how it affected many in the area. By giving us the role of Aggie and Leo, the author allows them to be people all over who must now be faced with challenges. People lost who can sometimes be people found and united once again. He takes us into the world of the media and how one single devastation caused chaos among so many by sometimes allowing others to use a bad situation to their advantage. The author clearly shows how people are human in any given situation and how sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures to stay alive.

Overall rating: 4 hearts
Sensuality rating: Sweet

Reviewer: Linda of The Romance Studio
November 16, 2005

House of Souls: The Untold Family Saga of Wrestling Rings and Soap Suds

The novel is available on http://houseofsouls.blogspot.com, and I got a letter from a publisher who critiqued it. It's the most in depth critique I've ever gotten from a publisher that could serve to help other young writers:

Dear Justin,

We thank you for giving Samhain Publishing the opportunity to review your work , House of Souls, for possible publication. Unfortunately there are some issues with the manuscript that prevent us from offering a contract. The reasons are as follows:

1) Given your description of your book as a family saga, and the content of your manuscript, we felt it demanded a much higher word count than you dedicated to it. 15,000 words is appropriate for a quick tale, but a saga calls for a higher word count as, by definition it is a long, detailed story. As it stands, your manuscript reads more like an outline. Your multi-generational time frame supports a word count of 100,000 or higher.

2)The worlds of wrestling and soap operas do provide quite a contrast with plenty of dramatic potential, but expanding the characters and the events would allow the opportunity to demonstrate that much more fully. In addition, the Romeo and Juliet theme is never fully explored.

3)I would recommend that you go back and expand all the scenes outlined in this submission first, exploring the people and events in the story in more depth and detail.There's a general sense that you, the author, are maintaining a distance from the story, skimming over the top rather than delving into it.

As an example: the final scene has great dramatic potential that isn't
reached due to the brevity of the scene and the lack of build-up to it.
Three paragraphs is simply not enough space to establish the setting, the
characters, the mood of the moment. How do you, the author, want the reader to feel at the ending? Rewrite the final scene with evoking that response as
the goal.

Again, we appreciate your submitting to Samhain Publishing and wish you good luck in the future.

Angela James, Editor
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
http://www.samhainpublishing.com/


Not only is my writing too short and lack depth, but a writer friend commented that I'm trying to write stories that are too big and have broad canvases, and that since I'm at an early phase of my career at such a young age that maybe I need to scale back, and write smaller stories. Everyone I've spoken to about it (including the publisher's comments above) believe that I should take time off, and then write a much more scaled back second draft.

Another thing they agreed on was that the interplay between and soaps should be kept, and that there is a potiential market for that.

Novel has been completed and blog has been launched!

Much like several authors who are posting their novels in chapter by chapter installments on blogs, I've decided to jump on the bandwagon. Following the advice of readers and fellow writers alike, I've decided to return to the interplay between wrestling and soaps. This time around it's a family saga entitled House of Souls.

Here's a brief synopsis:

House of Souls takes the histories of both professional wrestling and soap operas, and wraps them up into a fictional tale of a family's ups and downs in both businesses throughout the years. The wrestling portion of the story is seen through the eyes of promoters and bookers instead of the typical point of view from a wrestler, and much like soaps, the story involves birth, marriage, and death. However, it strays away from such cliches as illegitimate children, extramarital affairs, or characters that come back from the dead.

A sleazy carnival worker falls in love with a prim and proper girl who works for the consumer goods company that is sponsoring the carnival. As they start a family, they are able to establish wrestling and soaps on their own which leads to their first peak during The Golden Age of Television amidst shady dealings and mental illness which contribute to its downfall. Their eldest son and eldest daughter take the reigns of the legacy during social and business upheavals which lead to the second golden age involving innovations such as pay per view and supercouples. Overexposure on The Internet causes a downturn and business leading to selling the business to a group of investors which coincides with deaths the of patriarch and matriarch of the clan.

Here's the link to the blog:

http://houseofsouls.blogspot.com/

Justin