This follow-up to the bestselling The Weekend Novelist will guide writers of all levels through the next phase in crafting their novel: the rewrite.
You ve finished your first draft congratulations Think it s ready for publication? Think again. The next stage is all about revising and reworking your manuscript fine-tuning the plot, adding or improving subplots, and fleshing out characters; in short, addressing important structural issues that make or break a novel.
Robert J. Ray, who helped thousands of writers get from blank page to first draft in The Weekend...

PI and ex-cop Matt Murdock is picky about the cases he takes on. Being a bodyguard isn't his favorite gig, especially when the client is a high-handed number-cruncher like Ellis Dean. But Murdock is short on funds, and the case is a puzzler. It doesn't hurt that it features the death, accidental or otherwise, of a beautiful woman. Murdock has a weakness for damsels in distress, even after it's a little late for rescue. Gayla Jean Kirkwood, killed in a car wreck on the Pacific Coast Highway, was a good-time girl, high-class waitress and wannabe starlet. Dean fires Murdock and ends up dead,...

When software mogul Eddie Hennessy dies of a heart attack, theres no reason to suspect foul play ... except that the family man was in bed with a masked call-girl and snorting cocaine at the time. And that the death scene closely resembles that of two other recently deceased executives. Eddie co-owned a boat with ex-cop and private-eye Matt Murdock. If Murdock can help out the widow by finding Eddies missing coin collection, maybe he wont have to sell the boat. Murdocks investigation leads him to Lido Enterprises, operated out of the magnificent white stone Hotel Bougaineville. For a hefty...

Christmastime is here, and weary-but-wise private-eye Matt Murdock is short on funds and holiday spirit. There are no white Christmases in Newport Beach, California, but there are soggy ones. One rainy evening at the Xanadu Mall, a down-on-his-luck mystery writer named Marvin Holly meets a runaway teenager and autographs her book. As they exit the mall, they encounter the headlights of a speeding car. In the aftermath the author is missing and the girl is in a coma. On an earlier case, Murdock befriended a precocious teenager named Cindy. Cindy is the product of a broken home, a very wealthy...

Crusty but softhearted Matt Murdock is a damn fine private-eye, but being his client has its hazards. Especially when you're not straight with him. Insurance investigator Bruce Halliburton hires his old army buddy to check into what he suspects is a faked death and winds up on LA's Huntington Beach, dead for real. That leaves Roxanne, the lovely widow Bruce was "protecting"-the same Roxanne whose chubby husband, Emiliano Mendez-Madrid, died of a heart attack after insuring his life ten times over. How is Roxanne Mendez-Madrid connected to Claude Belker, the subject of Bruce's investigation?...

Wealthy investors in Sedona, Arizona, are dropping like flies--more accurately, lead weights. They are falling down staircases and off mountainsides, decks, and hiking trails. With so many similar "accidents," the victims had to have been pushed. Other than their wealth and weakness for beautiful young women, what the falling men had in common was a financial interest in Sedona Landing, a historic hotel in Oak Creek Village. They also shared a long history with the chief investor, billionaire Axel Ackerman. Fearing that he too will plunge to his death, Ackerman hires Matt Murdock and Helene...