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Trial Run Virtual Book tour hosted by Happy Geek Media

Trial Run by Ella Medler

Trial Run by:

Ella Medler

Genres: Romance, Comedy, Adult

340 pages

Release Date: October 31, 2014

“Trust me, he says. You’ll be safe with me, he says.”

Amelie Watts is sick and tired of being treated like a child. She might be willowy and delicate, but she has strength of the kind that doesn’t show on the outside. Plus, she learned all she needed to know so she could cope on her own. Now, if only her big brother would finally release her inheritance! She would fly to the Bahamas and kiss the backwater she grew up in goodbye.
Jason Watts is fed up with picking up the pieces of his little sister’s life. If only she would grow up already and learn to live life without stabilizers! Her latest idea is insane, and bound to be her most enormous failure to date. But how to make her understand?

Enter Rob Tyson, incorrigible bachelor and Jason’s best friend. For a laugh, they make a bet. Two people, a hastily acquired boat, and a tropical paradise. What could possibly go wrong?

**AMAZON * B&N * iBOOKS * KOBO * SMASHWORDS * CREATESPACE * BOOK DEPOSITORY**

I like getting intimate.

With my characters, silly! What were you thinking?

It’s always been the most crucial thing to me, getting to know the most important people in my story inside and out. After all, it was my protagonists who made the decisions that pushed the plot forward. It was the characters who reacted to the challenges I put in their way. So it made sense to me to give them a lot of attention.

There’s a detailed physical description of the main characters in most new books – and I’m not picking on indies here; I am one myself – almost always so thorough, I get to know the color of the flecks in their irises when the sun shines from the west. It has become a habit and it’s a bad one. Poor is the life of those who choose their friends by their facial appearance. Or maybe it’s the curse of modern times, when we are taught at every turn to value physical perfection over strength of character – but that discussion is too heavy for a nice day like today. Let me just say that I’d take a kind man over a moody pretty boy any day.

Many of you know that I like experimenting through my writing. I experiment with styles, genres, themes, whatever crosses my mind. About three years ago I decided to experiment with the description of a character. I wanted to bring this person so close to the reader, there would be no doubt in my reader’s mind that he was THE man for them.

And I succeeded. A lot of people wrote in to say they loved my protagonist. He was the man of their dreams, or the one they would choose to have on their team if things got rough (my character was in a thriller). Some even complained that he wasn’t single, and demanded I killed off his wife. It was funny to watch, but it told me one thing: those readers had connected with him.

A few months after publication, I asked fans of the book to describe my character’s physical appearance or post a photo of what they thought he might have looked like.

You guessed it. I was looking at about a dozen different people.

And here’s the conclusion of that little experiment: It doesn’t matter what a person looks like, to us, if that person acts in a way we enjoy and agree with. If that fictional man’s set of values fits in with those of the readers, there will be a connection. If the decisions he took and his motivations rang true with the reader, that reader loved my character. Missing physical details were filled in by the reader’s imagination, and that is exactly what writing a book is about – allowing room for the imagination to grow.

So here’s my tiny piece of advice for you, if you’re starting up your writing journey. Put down the paintbrush for a while. There will be opportunities to tell me about the color of your character’s eyes later on. First, give me something that would make me like the guy – make him live his life as you imagined it. Tell me whether he is helpful, or skilled at something useful, or maybe goofy when talking to kids. Let me learn about him through watching him. Interactions between people tell me more than a photo ever will.

What kind of person would you rather have by your side? Do you have a ‘book boyfriend’ (or girlfriend) you’d rather was real? Tell me about him in the comments below.

Follow the tour here

Ella Medler is a U.K. author and editor who lives in a corner of Heaven, on the south-west coast of Ireland, overlooking the Atlantic. She writes fiction in many genres – some after her own tastes, and some to make her readers happy. Sometimes, those two happen to coincide. Whatever the genre, her books are action-driven, and well-developed characters are her forte.

A fierce supporter of genuine talent, Ella Medler founded Paper Gold Publishing because she believes there are authors out there who deserve a chance to shine, authors who would otherwise fall between the cracks of a crumbling, forever-shifting industry. Feel free to join the site to access free resources, take part in competitions and enter your work in box sets and anthology collections.

As an editor, Ella Medler has the tendency to nit-pick on plot issues while ignoring the type of rule that doesn’t allow for a sentence to be finished in a preposition. If you want to win her over, make sure your books are action-packed, your characters real, and you bring chocolate.