Guest Post: The idea for Shades of Twilight


I am pleased to have Martin Sharlow, author of Shades of Twilight guest posting as part of his Pump Up Your Book virtual tour.

To be honest this was the hardest book I have ever written. The only thing that seems to come close is its sequel which I'm currently working on. I'm not exactly sure why, maybe the characters are fighting me, lol. As to how I came up with it, well after catching the vampire bug last year I found myself wanting to write about them. I wrote one book that was in third person that has a good following, but somehow it didn't seem to ring true for me. I couldn't put my finger on it till I went back and did some more reading of my favorite books.
Then it hit me. I wasn't writing in first person, and my lead was a man in the first book. That’s when I knew what I needed to do.  Melissa was born right then, and the entire story began to unfold before me. Usually when I write I come up with a story I want to write, the plot is just waiting for me and I create the characters to go through the gauntlet that I prepare for them. In this instance, I created my main character without a plot. Instead I had a person who starts out immature and whiny, and slowly grows up as she overcomes the challenges that life puts in her way.
I realized quickly that this was going to take more than one book to accomplish if it was to be believable, and I wanted people to see the change. The second thing I wanted to do was to put her in the real world. I mean, I know a lot of vampire stores pretend they're in the real world, but I never really think they are. I mean while I was working on this novel one of  Stephanie Meyers' movies had just came out and was all over the place.  I couldn't help but think, if you were a teen and into Twilight, wouldn't you act a certain way or compare yourself to the movies or novels if you found yourself in a relationship with a vampire?  Even if it wasn't exactly the same thing? I think you would, and this helped me in developing the story, as well as some local legends that in the book turn out to be true. 

About Martin Sharlow

Martin Sharlow was always a storyteller. In his youth he used to play roleplaying games and usually he was the game master. That allowed him to create and modify stories and then tell them to his captive audience in the form of a game.  Because of this and the many fantasy books he read, Martin went the next step and started writing fantasy novels.

Shades of TwilightRecently, however, Martin changed genres to vampire romance as he got bitten by the vampire bug. This happened after picking up one of the latest novels and finding himself hooked on it. Today Martin has written two vampire romance novels, and is in the process of writing many more.

Martin currently lives in Vancouver, WA with two of his three children, who help to keep him grounded in reality.

You can visit Martin Sharlow at http://www.wix.com/targoun/martin