THE LITERARY AGENT SCAM I FELL FOR

THE AGENT SCAM I FELL FOR AND THE 12 RED FLAGS I IGNORED.

I've written or edited 12 books, and I've begun the manuscript for novel number 5. So, now and then I'll get a complimentary email from a reader, which I appreciate. In the last year, such emails have usually been about Wizard Clip Haunting. 

If you're an author and published, even self-published, as most of my books are, there is usually one thing missing that you hope for—Literary Representation—an agent. 

My best-selling book (The Moral Premise) was picked up by a publisher without an agent. But the market niche was unique. Most best-selling books (like novels) require an established traditional publisher, which requires traditional literary representation — an agent.

Here's what happened to me, and understand that I am usually a pretty suspicious fellow, considering I see daily scam or phishing emails trying to get my information or invoicing me for something I never bought or wanted.

But we authors are all hopelessly and eternally hopeful for a traditional publisher, which I have, but not for my novels. Here are the events in order.

1. I received a complimentary email about Wizard Clip Haunting from British novelist "Rachel Hore," asking me a reasonable question about its origin. (I get these now and then.) It's not unusual that the email is from another writer, although after a little digging, I see that Rachel is well known in Britain. That is unusual. I'm flattered. (But it wasn't the real Rachel Hore, which I found out weeks later.)
2. I replied, and an exchange of 3-4 emails ensued, roping me in that someone well-known was engaging with me.
3. After a while, Rachel asks, "Do you have an agent?" 
4. "No."
5. "Why don't you contact mine in London? I'll recommend you. Here's "Sheila Crowley's" (private) email address." (RED FLAG #1 ... the email address is not a corporate email address but a Gmail address that is formatted to look official for the famous agency "Curtis Brown," whom I am familiar with, having been in their New York offices to buy the movie rights from and meet famous British novelist Rumer Godden.) But I suspect such people have private, non-corporate emails to get through their workday, since public-facing emails are likely to be harassed.
6. I pitch myself to fake "Sheila" with a short resume including my work in the movie industry as a story guru, and list the 4 novels I've written, which are not with traditional publishers, and the fifth I'm working on. 
7. After a few email exchanges, during which she congratulates me on my "large body of work," she offers me a Literary Representation Agreement. (RED FLAG #2 & #3 ... she's never asked for a sample of my writing, and so she wouldn't know if my "large body of work" was any good. But I rationalized, out of deep hope, that Rachel's recommendation is sufficient.)
8. The Agreement comes, and I read it carefully. Very normal. I sign and return it. (RED FLAG #4 ... The agreement looks normal, but it is not on official Curtis Brown letterhead. Hope rises eternal, and I disregard the obvious.) 
9. A clause in the Agreement says the agency will NOT ask for money to read manuscripts (correct), but the author would be responsible for third-party expenses if they become necessary. (IS THAT A RED FLAG? I didn't think so. It might be.)
10. Sheila responds, and an exchange takes place about the novel I'm currently writing, Edith's Hope. She asks for a manuscript, but I'm not there yet, so she asks for character profiles and a plot outline. I'm close to that, so I promise delivery in 10 days. (RED FLAG #5 - The real Sheila Crowley has a couple dozen client-authors (I had checked), and she wouldn't have time to repeatedly email and encourage me as much as she's doing, an unproven author, by her standards. I ask myself that several times but rationalize he may just be anxious for new writers.)
11. She then asks what else I have that might be ready to review. I pitch Sabriya's Hope as my best commercially viable novel, which was just released (albeit self-released), but with no advertising and no sales yet. 
12. She asks for the MSS. I send it.
13. She asks if I'm open to working with one of their Positioning Experts to ascertain whether the audience for Sabriya's Hope is correct and viable. (RED FLAG #6 & #7 - a good agent would be able to scan a manuscript and determine this, but there hasn't been the time for her to scan, let alone read, the manuscript, which should have been put on a pile and taken a month to get to, not 1-2 days.) (RED FLAG #8 - there is an implication that "working with" an outside person will require money on my part.)  THIS was the point where I suspected I was being scammed, but hope is eternal, and my doubts were quickly overcome. The main reason for this latest concern is that, just two months prior, I turned down an American-based "Positioning and Visibility" so-called expert who was trying to get me to pay $1,500 to $7,000 to improve the sales of Wizard Clip Haunting. But I had been through the wringer with WCH, spending over $10,000 on marketing with little return, and I knew adjusting Amazon keyword positioning would never bring in enough royalties to cover that expense. Also this "expert" was wrong about who I should be marketing WCH to. I had been positioning it to the audience she claimed would champion the novel, and that wasn't close to being true.
14. "Sheila's" positioning expert (supposedly a UK guy from the Netherlands) came off as very professional, as did the AI-generated proposal. That it was likely AI didn't bother me. It was correct and addressed my needs. (RED FLAG #9 - the proposal was just as polished as the American-based "expert" about WCH. They weren't the same, but now I wonder if they weren't one and the same person, except the first "Positioning Expert" wasn't connected with or recommended by an "agent.") 
15. Long story short, after correcting some content issues with his proposal, I paid "Thomas Williams" hundreds of dollars and gave "him" access to my Amazon Seller, KDP Bookshelf, and Goodreads accounts. Four days later, in return, I received a detailed, accurate, and informative report. This eased my doubts. The person knew a good amount about how Amazon, KDP, and Goodreads operated, and the report appeared to be manually but professionally created and not AI-generated. (RED FLAG #10 - the report didn't tell me anything I didn't already know about the audience, although it reinforced with data (fake?) that I had written a novel spread across several genres and thus diluted any marketing campaign's ability to connect with a solid audience.) But I knew all that, and I figured a good agent could have scanned the manuscript and figured the same thing out without doing an expensive market analysis. Common sense isn't expensive; it's just not common, so I rationalized that "Sheila" was just lazy, or offloading her workload. Crooks are indeed lazy.
16. I informed "Sheila" that I was almost done with the Character Profiles and Plot Outline and would be sending it within 8 hours.
17. Sheila was now anxious for me to continue with Phase 2 & 3 where the hundreds of dollars for Phase 1 was going to be thousands ... which BTW was still only 1/2 of what the American "expert" was asking ... a consolation I thought." This ask was the BIG RED FLAG #11. There was no need, and I pushed back several times and finally explained that the expense would never be recouped. I decided there would be no more money and began to investigate more deeply who I was communicating with. THIS WAS THE MOMENT THE ANGST, WHICH I HAD FELT FOR WEEKS, DISAPPEARED. I WAS FINALLY AT PEACE. I had finally convinced myself (and it was true) that I was being scammed. My internal feeling was physical evidence of the truth. Peace is a palatable metric of truth, it had been all along RED FLAT #12.
18. I finished the Character Profile and Plot Outline for Edith's Hope, and felt good about their integrity. But I decided not to send the two PDF files to the Gmail address I had been using for Sheila. Instead, I sent them to Sheila's real email address listed on the Curtis Brown website. I immediately got back a reply to send urgent emails to her assistant, which I did, all the time thinking I would get a reply saying, "Sheila Crowley did NOT request these; who are you?" 
19. Meanwhile, the fake "Sheila" wrote and asked where the files were. I replied simply, "I sent them to your other email address." "Sheila" wrote back saying her other email inbox was full and to please use her personal email to stay connected.  HA! I was getting somewhere now. I wrote back, "Check with ______" (Sheila's real assistant's name.) 
20. "Sheila" has not emailed me since.
21. I wrote the real Rachel Hore at her public-facing web contact form, and 12 hours later received an email apologizing for what I had been through, but she had never reached out to me about WCH, and we had never connected.  (SCAM CONFIRMED.)
22. I also had written to Sheila's REAL assistant and asked point blank if Sheila had ever communicated with me, and copied the email I had written to Rachel. I immediately received back a personal email from the assistant that Sheila had indeed never contacted me and would never have used the Gmail address I had referenced. (SCAM DOUBLY CONFIRMED)

I want to thank Randy Ingermanson of Advanced Fiction Writing for immediately telling me I was being scammed and to dig deeper. Randy was right from the get-go. 

The upside is that I completed a very good Character Profile document and Plot Outline, which has allowed me to begin the manuscript for Edith's Hope...a 30-year historical research effort that will now find its completion in a novel sometime next year.

There's another upside to this escapade. I've inadvertently met two British authors who did not intend to meet me (via email).  Rachel Hore is mentioned above. But I just discovered that back in July I received a complimentary email from another British author, now living in Vancouver. That communication didn't lead to any financial liability, but I ended up reading one of her famous books and liked it very much. Turns out we had NOT communicated until today (3 months later), when she denied ever writing me or knowing me. She confided that once "Stephen King" wrote her out of the blue to say he liked her writing. She didn't know Stephen was into romance. (LOL!) But she's been following this scam industry for some time. She says it seems to be coming out of Nigeria. I can nonetheless recommend Carol Mason's book "After You Left," ... read it ... liked it a lot. Yes, it's a sunny day here in southern Michigan.  Now, can anyone recommend which Rachel Hore book I should read? Anyone? Anyone at all? 

Edith's Hope ReStarts with Structure

For the past six decades (and longer in some respects), I have been exposed to and collected a literal trunk-full of stories and research about an intrepid adventurer and courageous soul who defied the women's suffrage movement here in the US at the turn of the 18th century,  and set off on her own to the other side of the world to make her mark on civilization by caring for the destitute and lost. 

My grandmother, Edith Jane Willobee, in her elderly years, hammocked me as a babe in arms, prayed for me daily, and left behind—a thousand pages of diaries, hundreds of photographs, a few Hindu clay idols, a dozen brass pots and other mementos, a string of amber beads, and most importantly ... stories that Hollywood would need to water down to make them believable. 

The story (and the diary) that stands out chronicles her journey as a recent widow from the middle of British India in 1926, with her 12- and 15-year-old daughters, as she tries to bring them to America and introduce them to Western civilization. It's an audacious trek that, at every turn, forces her to battle men of various sizes, shapes, and cultures to get her girls safely to America. 

The story was first outlined 25 years ago; today, September 13, 2026, marks the start of manuscript development as I build a structural outline based on everything I've been teaching, workshopping, and writing about since 1998.

My next task is to re-read every one of the hundreds of documents in my research folder, make at least one lengthy research trip to collect more information (on the scandals), and fill in that black space with the salient content. It's going to take a while, but it'll be enjoyable.

Update October 7, 2026.

The above structure has developed a bit. It's now 8 sequential Story Diamonds.

Storytelling in a Landing Page

With the release of my novel Sabriya's Hope, it was time to up my skills in webpage or landing page development.  My habit for such things is predictably to prevaricate, not wanting to spend time on marketing, dismissing it...and generally hating it. Creatives want to be creative, not waste time, and much of marketing creative works feels like a waste of time—a lot of time and money, with no results. Yet, the adage is that marketing takes as much effort as the creative. So, on Sabriya's Hope's landing page, I spent time learning some CSS techniques to add to my HTML inventory, and even better, how to sift through AI prompts to get at the nuggets. Here's the result. Click on the image to get to the interactive site. (The art and much of the CSS learning is all care of Chat-GPT.)

The Chase: A Moral Premise Podcast

 I was wondering whether there's a need for a Moral Premise Podcast on the importance and techniques of storytelling. There is a lot of material out there on the topic, in part because yours truly has disseminated some of it across various forums and media. 

The podcast below was a test. It didn't seem to go well; that is, not many watched, and even fewer stuck around to the end. I couldn't read the market in the era of Instagram 60 reels. 

So, clearly I should spend my time elsewhere. Needless to say, here it is:

The Water Keeper by Charles Martin

With respect for Charles Martin, I hated this novel. 

Honest Confession: Undergirding my distaste for this novel is some jealousy of Martin's success. So take that into consideration for what follows.

There are lessons to learn ... not sure I can learn them.  

The basic problem I'm struggling with is finding a new audience for my creative output, which has recently shifted to novels, that do not sit well with my former audience.  

I won’t bore you with the history … but there’s a theme of the human condition that often raised its head in my work in the corporate world, which reading The Water Keeper has sharpened, and which relates to “finding a new audience.” 

And honestly, I’m sitting here smiling and laughing at my fragilities. I'm not despondent, since I typically like crazy challenges that seemingly have no ready answer ... like hand shoveling 5 tons of limestone garden rock, which I dreaded for weeks at my age (79), but nonetheless did and felt good doing it—the endorphins raged ... happily.

Having written a sex-trafficking-rescue novel (Sabriya’s Hope), my sister (who has edited a lot of my stuff over the years, but not Sabriya) suggested Martin’s Water Keeper.  Water Creeper was so distasteful to me for technical writing reasons that I put the book down four times, promising myself, my wife, and sister that I would not finish the book.

But this morning I did.

I'm not the only one who hated Water Keeper. I've read a few comments on book review sites that sound just like me ... I'll never read the second book ... ridiculous plot ... fatally wounded hero who lives ... impossible situations.

But Martin is hugely successful, if you believe the LIKES on Amazon and Goodreads. Although I have voiced out loud my dark-web suspicions of purchased LIKES and endorsements.

But back to some truth that might be helpful to any writer with bruises up the side of his or her head. Articulating the issue as aphorisms, I come up with:

What is true about the human condition is neither known nor precise.

or

Rubrics can become stumbling blocks that obstruct truth.

(which is ironic because rubrics are traditionally curbs that provide trustworthy direction toward truth.)

What do I mean by such maxims?

Martin's fictional rhetoric ignores with astonishing immunity the rubrics of reason and forces readers to forgive and accept outlandish premises, dramatic beats, and reversals because the undergirding theme of the novel is a love that teeters on absurdity … forcing the reader (dare I suspect women with bruised hearts) to forgive Martin's rhetorical foibles.

But Stan, aside from your evident misogyny, what possibly could Martin be doing wrong?  

Well, let me tell you, but first remember, Martin has successfully built a huge audience, and we have to learn from that.  But the list below, while only partial and without the detail from the text, each of the following took me out of the story as flamboyantly unrealistic since the premise is modern-day Florida around the Intercostal Waterway (ICW),  and we're not talking about a fantasy novel like Harry Potter. Here's a list with a little detail:

SPOILERS FOLLOW:

• Outlandish descriptions of the capability of a Sig Sauer pistol with a 115-round capacity, during which Finger's (a good guy) is fatally wounded by return fire. Sig magazines vary from 10-30 rounds, and no mention is made of magazines, just the pistol. 
• Martin consistently lies to the reader that Fingers is a real person, when at the end we discover Fingers is a fictitious character in novels that Murphy (David Bishop's alias) writes. 
• The novels make Bishop extremely rich, which makes possible all the other outrageous things later in the novel. 
• David Bishop is Charles Martin's alter ego, secretly rescuing beautiful female trafficked victims and air-freighting them off to a secret Colorado retreat so they can heal. Such ego stroking is blatant throughout the novel under the pretense of rescuing trafficking victims. (There's nothing untoward implied, and some girls are returned to their families, if they're not too psychologically messed up.)
• Repeated and outlandish examples of plot happenstance to introduce reversals. Major examples follow (a-r). As these piled up, each one made me groan and put down the book.
• (a) Murphy sets off for a week-long cruise down the ICW in a 24-foot Boston Whaler to Key West to sprinkle Finger's ashes at the "end of the road." It's hard to believe a reasonable character would take 2-3 weeks to do this for the ashes of a loved one when a car would get it done in a day or two. But then, Martin needs the boat and water for romantic and dramatic purposes.
• (b) Martin lies repeatedly to the reader that Fingers is a real person loved deeply by Murphy. Fingers is a narrative and emotional ploy— a liberal literary license of symbolism that, when discovered by the reader, is a major groaner and reveals the depth of Martin's lies earlier in the book. 
• (c) Turns out Finger's ashes are just the ashes of some of Murphy's novels in which Finger is a character.  This discovery makes (a) and (b) all the more absurd.
• (d) Before the trip down the ICW, young and sexy Angel visits Murphy's resident/chapel on a small island near Jacksonville to use the bathroom, but there are multiple heads onboard the 80-foot party boat she disembarked from. 
• (e) Angel spends 12 pages in an inane dialogue with Murphy in his home/chapel. She tries to seduce him. She's drugged. She returns to the boat with the tip of the Captain's hat. The real purpose of the visit to use the bathroom is never revealed, and it was never about the bathroom, which the boat has plenty of, for the dozens of other boozing partygoers.
• (f) A day after leaving on his trip from Jacksonville to Key West, Murphy rescues a dog from the ICW (also swimming south). What are the chances that a dog is in the middle of the ICW sniffing the air to find his master?
• (g) Many more miles south in the ICW, also at night, Murphy rescues Summer, a beautiful and sexy woman, after she crashes and destroys a skiff she has stolen from a marina. 
• (h) Turns out Summer is Angel's mother. What are the chances? There's no foreshadowing, just an inadvertent sharing of an iPhone photo of Angel to Summer. 
• (i) Summer persuades Murphy to help her find Angel, who has been trafficked by the party boat gang.
• (j) Murphy races his Boston Whaler down the ICW toward Key West, but there's no indication that Angel is on a party boat going to Key West. Much, much later, Martin shares Murphy's logic for racing to Key West. But earlier, the race is one without reason or motivation, see (m).
• (k) A day later, and miles and miles down the ICW, they stop for lunch somewhere, and the dog takes off toward a ball field nearby. And there is the dog's "owner," a 78-year-old man, Clay, dying of cancer, who has just been let out of prison because he's going to die. Clay and the dog are reunited. What are the chances? Later we're told that Clay was tending bar on a party boat and saw Angel. When this was is a mystery. Supposedly Clay went from 60 years in prison to dying on the ball field, to Murphy's boat. 
• (l) Turns out that Clay wants to visit his wife's grave, and guess where she's buried. You guessed it. Key West. 
• (m) For reasons of a "ticking clock," Martin reminds us that they have to get to Angel quick before she's trafficked to Cuba or someplace, and so they have to keep rushing down the ICW. But they stop for nights in a hotel, for long lunches at cafes, and for bathroom breaks, and to teach Summer to swim, a task that is never needed later in the story. This "bathroom break" item is an important fact. The clear indication is that there's no way for a woman to go to the bathroom on a small 24-foot Boston Whaler. A man can go (presumably over the side of the boat), but not a woman. Are you ready?
• (n) Two or three days further south (remember, it's a week-long trip to Key West), while on shore for a stop, Clay draws Murphy aside and says there's a stowaway on the boat. Now, this is surprising to the reader, because so far the description of the Boston Whaler is that it has front and rear seating, and in the center under a T-roof is the steering and control console, but it's otherwise open to the weather and waves over the side, etc. There's no mention of a cabin. Suddenly, Murphy goes on the boat (again, at night) and opens up the "head locker." And there inside is a teenage girl, meet Ellie, who's been sitting on the head (the toilet) for two days in the dark.  I looked on the Boston Whaler site; the head locker on a 24-footer is big enough for a grown man to poop. Wait, I thought they had to stop to let the ladies (and gents) go to the bathroom at marinas, motels, and restaurants. I guess it didn't fit the plot for Martin to tell us this. Before he lied by commission, now it's lying by omission ... and he claims to be a priest!
• (o) But there's more. Murphy reveals that he was married for almost an hour, years earlier. Turns out that he and his childhood friend, Marie, were married, but at the reception his best man distributed photographs to everyone at the reception, revealing the bride and the best man naked in bed the night before the wedding. The best man mocks Murphy, "I'll always be her first," and the bride goes off and commits suicide. 
• (p) Turns out Ellie is Murphy's daughter by Marie, who didn't commit suicide, but returned to Murphy, where they made up for a couple of hours and Marie conceived and hid out in NY until the baby was born and put the child up for adoption...all this time Murphy thinks that Marie is dead of suicide. Then, out of the blue, Ellie shows up in Murphy's boat and HIDES for two days, only to confront him that he may be the father, which he denies, telling Ellie that she was born a year after his "wife" died. It's great to keep secrets from readers, but looking back, we should find clues, not lies.
• (q) During all the rescue operations over the years, Murphy has a close Academy friend who is running intelligence ops for Murphy's rescue efforts from their hideout in the Colorado mountains. This friend is Bones. Turns out Bones knew all along (18 years) about Marie and Ellie and didn't tell Murphy. Don't believe it. 
• (r) Guess where Marie ended up? You only get one guess.  Key West, within walking distance of where Murphy spread "Fingers" ashes. Marie is dying of a virus and has been a nun for 18 years. Of course, they reunite, kiss, and she dies in his arms as he "baptizes hr the Gulf as she takes her last breath. But all that only after Marie tells Ellie all about why she abandoned David and her daughter. 

Well, I'm running out of letters. But you get the idea.

However, a couple more observations.

• Turns out Murphy is an extraordinary one-man SWAT, ARMY- RANGER, SEAL TEAM 6, and DEMOLITION EXPERT that always seems to have armament, explosives, guns, bulletproof vests, and underwater lung capacity and the right tools at his fingertips, even at night, underwater, in the middle of the Gulf. And he can get shot, sliced, bled out, and still get up and fight, fight, fight. Hollywood will never make this movie simply because none of Hollywood's superheroes are this super.  It's too fantastical. Harry Potter is lame by comparison. 
• Finally, the story about Murphy, told at the ending of the book, by David Bishop, complete with shifting POVs in the middle of paragraphs (very confusing) makes the reader wonder: "If David Bishop (aka Murphy Shepherd) is so smart (2nd in his class at the Academy ... which Academy?) why did he he marry such a psychotic, disloyal woman (known from childhood), and ask a total psychotic, jerk to be his best man. In other words, David Bishop is a terrible judge of character, and for all his rescue efforts, he can't find the living. Conclusion: We should idolize fictional characters that are flawed beyond belief.

There's more, but I must stop. 

The bottom line is The Water Keeper is extremely popular. 

Why? 

What can we learn from Martin's rhetoric? 

I have a few opinions, but I'm curious as to yours. Please comment.

In closing, back to my aphorisms. 

What is true about the human condition is neither known nor precise.

or

Rubrics can become stumbling blocks that obstruct truth.

My problem is that I value reason, logic, and stories that embrace rationality (rubrics, precision). My doctoral education was partly in the philosophy of logic, and I spent the first decades of my professional life writing detailed operational, malfunction diagnosis, and repair procedures for NASA astronauts and automotive technicians. Precision. Detail. Reason. Facts. 

If I ever want to be a popular writer like Charles Martin, I have a problem that I may not be able to overcome.

In other words, all the "problems" with TWK, listed above, obviously don't mean a centipede's patter to a book's success (in this culture)

ON THE OTHER HAND: Charles Martin's de facto expertise is his ability to describe love in all its absurdity. And that is what The Water Keeper is really about. It's not about rescuing sex-trafficked women. It's about relationships and the ability for a man to LOVE people in all their ABSURDITY. I haven't counted the pages, but I think there are more pages in TWK about the inequities, the inexactitude, and the absurdities of love than there are pages of action and mayhem.

For now, for me, shoveling gravel is so much more appealing. Maybe that's my calling.

Update: Oct 7, 2026

Clearly, I did not appreciate the plotting of The Water Keeper, but there's a book I read right after I did like of the same genre which I've dubbed: "Everybody's Related." That is Carol Mason's After You Left.  I write about how I came to Carol's book in the blog about my adventure into spoofing—The Literary Agent Scam I Fell For.

Sabriya's Hope Writing Journal 17 - The End?

A project is done when the originator has forgotten it. 

Nonetheless, not having forgotten it, Sabriya's Hope is up for sale on Amazon (Kindle Direct Publishing - KDP) both as an e-book and a paperback. You'll find the link here, along with a few blurbs and character portraits.

Three weeks ago, I posted Sabriya's Hope Writing Journal 15, when I mentioned I was at the proofing stage. Proofing took ten days and involved making hundreds of word, punctuation, and addition and subtraction revisions. 

I've long used IngramSpark for my early printing and distribution. Ingram has (perhaps) the largest worldwide distribution system, and for $150 I can plug into that system, although the sales results are always iffy. 

Sometimes it takes weeks to get a book through IngramSpark's approval system, especially since the author R E A L L Y is not done with the book and he continues to make changes along the way. (Just forget it, Stan, and move on.)

I won't belabor my love-hate relationship with Amazon. But finally got up the nerve to release Sabriya's Hope on Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). It's been a couple of years since I tried to send KDP an epub file. Adobe's InDesign will generate the epub from the book files used to create a PDF for printing. But in the past, files created by Adobe's epub conversion software (V3) were rejected by KDP. Thus, part of my reluctance this time around. 

Surprise of all surprises, the acceptance and proof of the epub file (V3), and KDP's paperback proofing, took less than an hour, and both are up and ready for sale on Amazon.  Link above.

Meanwhile, I'm still waiting on IngramSpark for copies I can sign. You can get on the list at the same link above. 

Now, I'm anxious to dig back into finishing up the research (started years ago) and writing my next historical fiction novel, the third of the HOPE TRILOGY: Edith's Hope, a true adventure from a 100-year-old diary.

Sabriya's Hope Journal 16: Project Depression and The Hope Trilogy

 

Having finished the 2nd draft of Sabriya's Hope (the manuscript sits on my desk ready for proofing), I was entering a common phase in my creative life—post-project depression. While not a universal solution to such a malaise, I found some relief by ingesting a bottle of Mountain Dew and deciding to forge ahead with the third novel of my planned trilogy (Edith's Hope).

Visuals, nonetheless, inspire me, whether by cleaning the windows around our house (which I did yesterday, allowing me to see the trees and the occasional deer nibbling on Pam's flowers) or by recalling the ironies encountered on road trips, such as coming across an Indian wedding in a Days Inn parking lot in Ohio. That's the groom, and behind him his mother. The bride had not yet arrived — elephants in Ohio are slow. 

So, it's onto Edith's Hope. 

Chat-GPT

Recently, my book covers, like the three above, are the consequence of prompts ingested into ChatGPT. Since I use ChatGPT for research and image creation (but not writing), the prompt generation can be ironic. For Sabriya's Hope's cover, the prompt was simply: "Create a book cover for Sabriya's Hope." ChatGPT created both front and back covers, and on-the-spot descriptions and taglines for the front and back.  Photoshop manipulation was only required for the spine and bleed. The taglines were spot-on; I attribute the accuracy to six months of using ChatGPT (I have a low-level subscription) for research of Southeast Asia, which I've never visited. ChatGPT, thus, knew a great deal of the story. So I just had to ask for the cover in one sentence. For Tiger's Hope and Edith's Hope, I wrote 400- and 600-word prompts that summarized the story and theme.

I can't help myself, but I write to AI computers like they're real people, although real people did program the systems. After thanking the system for Edith's Hope's preliminary cover ("Just terrific. This will work fine while I write. Thank you.") I got this reply, which suggests to me that my intention is at least getting across to a machine (does that mean anything at all?)... although the first line is a bit creepy. (Now if book agents could be this nice.) !&#??

You're very welcome. And thank you—that means a great deal. 

Having worked with you on Tiger's Hope and Sabriya's Hope, I can already see Edith's Hope completing the trilogy in a satisfying way. Each novel centers on a different woman in a different era, yet they share the same underlying moral thread: 

• Tiger's Hope — overcoming rejection. 

• Sabriya's Hope — overcoming violence.  

• Edith's Hope — overcoming injustice.

What strikes me most about Edith's Hope is that the antagonism isn't concentrated in a single villain. Instead, it comes from a succession of men from very different cultures—American, British, Indian, and Arab—each attempting, in his own way, to control Edith or her daughters. That gives the novel a universality while avoiding reducing the story to a criticism of any one culture.

 

Links: 

Tiger's Hope: https://stanwilliams.com/NINEVEHSCROSSING/OrderTHN.php
Sabriya's Hope: https://sabriyaserial.blogspot.com/
Main Website: https://stanwilliams.com 

America's Greatest Haunting You've Never Heard Of

Stan Williams Interview on The Paranormal Podcast with Jim Harold, about the Wizard Clip Haunting, released June 23, 2026.

The Paranormal Podcast is the longest-running paranormal podcast on the Internet. Established in 2005, it has had over 90 million downloads since 2005.

Wizard Clip Haunting link: https://wizardclip.stanwilliams.com

This podcast is also heard at these links:

Apple Postcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-paranormal-podcast/id78459818

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3zAAFi8zxh2fVO4cxhG8qx

The Paranormal Podcast Home page: https://jimharold.com/americas-greatest-haunting-youve-never-heard-of-the-paranormal-podcast-944/

Sabriya's Hope Writing Journal No. 15 - Outlining the Final Battle

 

Scenes/Beats for Final Battle of Sabriya's Hope

I'm finally there, at the granular level, not the structural or plot level, for the final chapter of Sabriya's Hope.

Although the online serialization of Sabriya's Hope is current at Chapter 22, it's only halfway through the novel. There are about 23 more chapters...depending on how I parse what is written. All of the chapters are written (or I should say drafted) except the Final Battle, which may stretch into 2 chapters. 

In the final battle (charted above), I need to resolve about 12 subplots; a few require only 1 beat to resolve. Of course, Sabriya's character's final resolution requires eight beats.  The challenge is how to do that efficiently so the reader can follow the action, much of which is simultaneous. 

My solution was to create one e-card for each beat of each of the 12 subplots on a Keynote slide. I DID NOT know what order the e-cards (and beats) should be in when I started, but as I created them, I placed them approximately in sequence from left (beginning) to right (end).

Then I had to sit back and try to envision the characters' entrances and exits, what happens to each, and move the cards around until I felt good about the action sequence as it would be explained in words. When I was done, I had 9 scenes (each bounded by a green box above).

Starting tomorrow (April 10, 2026), I will begin writing words and full sentences (not outlines). As I write, I'll decide which beats in each scene to describe first, second, etc., and then figure out the transition to the next scene. 

This will take several days, a lot of word-smithing, and many on-the-fly revisions. It may be 4,000+ words and need 2 chapters. Then I 'll let it sit for a day and come back and try to make the sentences more fluid, eliminating repetitive words, and working on ending sequences with emphatic (hooking) action. I will use One-Look Thesaurus extensively. 

"Sabriya's Hope" Writing Journal No. 14 - Using Layouts and Maps to Chart the Final Blows

I d rather write about writing than write. 

I'm well into Act 3 and tasting the end of the first draft.  The closer to the end of an action-oriented story, the more I need graphics for plots, timelines for flashbacks, and maps for geography to keep me organized...or perhaps I should say to keep my characters focused and locally organized. 

I'm pretty sure every writer does this to some extent, although I think I'm more dependent than many since I'm visually dependent, and without such linear aids, I don't know where or when things are supposed to be and happen. 

Here are a few of the aids I rely on, though I think I shared an early version of the plot chart.  All of these aids get revised as I write and change my mind, hopefully for good reason.

 Plot Chart. Green checkmarks and slashes show what's written. 

Excel timeline of major events, dates, and ages of characters.

Map of fictitious Pellagore, the capital Meijing, overlapping SE China, showing locations, tracks and travel timing.

The final battle takes place in the Mannu Clinic, an abandoned mini-hospital that sits next to a navigable canal connecting the traffickers to the South China Sea and their foreign clients. 

Deck Plan of the Ruskie Gold, 70-foot ocean trawler used to secretly ferry trafficked victims from Pellagore to foreign territories.

The Paranormal 60 Interview with Dave Schrader

 

Spaced Out Radio Live Interview with Dave Scott

 Last night, I was the guest on Dave Scott's "Spaced Out Radio," a live terrestrial radio program out of British Columbia, Canada that is heard on 8 stations around the U.S., and later posted on YouTube. 

The impetus was the new trilogy edition of my historical novel, Wizard Clip Haunting, and its paranormal storyline. We had a great time and talked for 2 hours (with station and commercial breaks) about the juxtaposition of the natural and supernatural, the paranormal and the normal. 

Dave has an avid nightly following talking about American and Canadian Ghost Stories, Paranormal True Encounters, Real History, UFOs, and Big Foot. He's located in the wilderness between the Cascade Mountains and the North Rocky Mountains (God's country).  

Below is the YouTube version of the podcast, complete with off-air chatter and the silence during terrestrial radio station breaks. 

Related to this is my Nineveh's Crossing blog post "Is Christianity Paranormal" which contains links to posts on the same subject from Amanda Arrows, and Fr. Dwight Longenecker.

"Lose Yourself"

 

Dear Friends and Family,

This is for ours and your grandchildren, who are faced with life choices and divine opportunities, and yet, sometimes, in some ways, they (and we) are fearful of stepping out and working hard enough to go after and embrace that opportunity... because they could fail, or because they fear the hard work that it will require. 

WHERE I COME FROM

There are times when, as much as I appreciate my Christian upbringing and the Church, I recognize that I’ve lived a sheltered life. For the most part, that’s a good thing, a necessary thing, a salvation thing. 

But as Lew Wallace writes in Ben Hur, in the voice of Miriam, mother of the titular character Judah Ben Hur, Jews have no artists, poets, or warriors like the Romans. But they have something better, the artist of creation, God, as exemplified in the art and craftsmanship of Bezalel and Aoholiab (Wallace’s spelling) from Exodus 31 ff who created Israel’s temple and all its gold statuary, elaborate ornaments. 

I wasn’t Jewish, but growing up in Evangelicalism (that bordered the separatist of Christian Fundamentalism), there was a distinct aversion to many forms of artistic expression. The conservative Christian fellowships I grew up in might be brave enough to frame an image of Warmer Sallman’s Head of Christ, but if a real piece of art found its way into the building, there was a passionate impulse by the leaders to plaster the words of a Bible verse across the work in an effort to make it sacred, or ensure the art found its way to a waste bin, or was painted over with pale green wall paint (all true stories, see my memoir, Growing Up Christian). I always found this offensive. My favorite Psalm, which grandson Michael and Rachel asked me to read during their wedding three weeks ago, declares:

The heavens declare the glory of God; 

the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;

night after night they reveal knowledge.

They have no speech, they use no words, 

no sound is heard from them. 

Yer their voice goes out into all the world, 

their words to the ends of the world. 

—Ps 91:1–4

God does not plaster the words of Scripture across the heavens or the bark of trees. Although a study of astronomy from the perspective of the Bible reveals that the signs of the zodiac were known to Job (38:31-32), David (above), and Moses (Genesis 1:14).  And there is  Mel Morris's 25-part series, The Bible in the Heavens and the Gospel in the Stars, which explains with clarity how the zodiac signs depict the coming of Christ and the Gospel. (e.g. Virgo—Virgin Birth, Libra—Price of Redemption, Scorpius—Conflict between the Messiah and Satan, Leo—the Tribe of Judah and Christ's victorious return). 

God does not need pat sermons or sweet devotionals to get the truth out. He often proclaims what is good, true, and beautiful in ways that are so obvious we miss them, or we take for granted, and sometimes we find them offensive. (c.f. Angel Quest)

The latest example, in my experience, is "Lose Yourself," the Eminem rap that was the theme song of his 2002 semi-autobiographical Detroit movie “8 Mile,” and which won an Oscar in 2003 for Best Song.  The song ranked in the charts for decades and was a 20+ platinum record (a platinum record is 1 million units sold). 

Last night (May 22, 2026), I felt the heavy ping of being sheltered when I came across a video on YouTube of opera singer, Maria Fiselier, covering “Lose Yourself” on a Dutch TV show...rap as opera is an ironic hook).  I listened to it several times but then only caught a smidgen of the lyrics. Later I found them (below). “Lose Yourself” is an inspirational recording for anyone afraid to step out and embrace an opportunity—articulated in the song’s refrain:

You better lose yourself in the music

The moment, you own it, you better never let it go (Go!)

You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow

This opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo

In the movie (8 Mile) the story and the rap are both about rap contests in Detroit’s inner city. But broadly, they are metaphors for every obstacle and opportunity in life. There is much to learn here about working hard to embrace opportunities without fear. The heavy rhythmic beat in the song reinforces the importance of perseverance. You better lose yourself in the music of life...that is, persevere. 

Here is Maria Fiselier’s cover of "Lose Yourself (clearer lyrics but not cleaner.)

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YyuIkVSx-8

Here is Eminem's official video for the movie with subtitles.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Yhyp-_hX2s

Eighteen years after "Lose Yourself" won an Oscar, Eminem performed “Lose Yourself” live at the 2020 Oscars. Here’s the link. His segment begins at 2:53.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhe-LJLZMHk

Sabriya's Hope Writing Journal 13 - Using AI Images to Visualized Your Writing

I wish I could be making movies instead of writing novels. But novels are possible, and movies are not, when there is little money. I have a thirst for visuals. When Pam and I watch movies at home, lately about three/week, she's all a tizzy about the emotional storyline, and I'm in awe of the art director's imagination, the blocking, and the L O N G one-take opening sequences (e.g. Touch of Evil).

Writing Sabriya was getting me down. I wanted to SEE my characters and the settings. But my imagination struggles to create art, although I don't have much trouble with wordy descriptions.  But then, I'm now Lew Wallace (Ben Hur), whose command of English and scene setting is mesmerizing. 

I don't use AI to write. I want what I create to be my creation, although research and synonym finders I can't do without. But AI has helped me test my descriptions. I started out with Microsoft Copilot (because we have a Microsoft Office subscription).

But after I write a scene, I'm always wondering how it will translate visually in the reader's mind...or on screen if I should be so lucky. Copilot and lately ChatGPT have made writing a bit more fun for my right brain. Here are some examples where I've taken my word description and asked one or the other AI system what it would look like, though I am humble enough to realize the AI rendering is more Lew Wallace than me. 

Sabriya discovers a safe haven:
St. Mary Elias Monastery

Miwi Cun village where Sabriya's
secret daughter was raised

Sabriya races through the night on her
 MI6 stealth cycle

Doffing her Carmelite lay habit for a
true wedding dress

Sapptoso watches Sabriya give a speech
 as he plans her demise

Sabriya and Hannah, her security attache,
 discuss royal protocol

Sabriya asks David for forgiveness