Friendly Friday - J. Lloyd Morgan

***I need to apologize to my guest this week. I was away on a writing retreat and didn't realize his post failed to publish until this evening. Please make him feel welcome by leaving a wonderful comment. He's such an awesome guy and an even better author.

J. Lloyd Morgan

First off, a big old "thank you" to C. K. Bryant for allowing me to be a part of her awesome Friendly Friday series. I've enjoyed reading other author's posts, and I hope mine will do them justice.

Here is a bit about me:

I'm an award winning television director. That sounds cooler than it really is. It's a great attention getter, though. I spent ten years directing TV newscasts and other interview type programs. I changed careers a few years back so I could actually see my kids as they grew up. I'm the father of four wonderful daughters and husband to my wonderful wife of nineteen years. The Hidden Sun is my first novel, though plan to write many more. The sequel, The Waxing Moon, has been written and is in the editing stage. (Side note: I had the titles of my books planned out before I ever heard of a certain vampire series that is all the rage)

Below is one of my more recent blogs.


Hearing the Punch Line First

"Well duh! It was ground this morning." Does that sentence make any sense to you? It really shouldn't. It is a punch line for a joke. So why did I write the punch line first? Like with most my blogs, to get your attention. The joke starts like this: A woman walks into a coffee shop. She goes there quite often and knows all the workers by name. However, today she enters and there is a new employee. The young man seems nice enough, but doesn't really appear to know what he is doing. The woman talks with the young worker for a moment and finds out it's his first day, and his trainer went home sick earlier. She orders her regular drink and the young man looks confused for a moment but then goes about his work. In the mean time, the woman gets a call on her cell phone. The young man comes back a little bit later with the coffee cup. The woman pays him, still distracted while on the phone. While exiting the store, she takes a sip and then promptly spits it out. She spins around and says to the worker, "This coffee tastes like mud!"

There are certain TV shows I watch and never miss an episode. For almost all of these shows, I make it a point never to watch the following week's previews. Why? Because most of the time, they give too much away! Movie previews (aka trailers--but why do they call them trailers? Aren't trailers things that come after? But, I digress) are often the worst offenders. There are countless times I've been watching a movie and during a tense moment I've thought, "OK, based on the previews, I know what is going to happen." It ruins the experience! Or how about the times when there is something shown in a movie preview that never ends up in the movie? Let me get this straight--the scene is good enough for the preview to entice people to see the movie, but not good enough for the movie itself? I'm not sure if the people in charge of the previews think the general public have no long term memories or not, but why include shots of the final part of the movie in the previews? It's actually rather insulting. So, when it came time to write a teaser for The Hidden Sun, I wanted it to be interesting enough to get people to read it, but not really give anything away. I couldn't help but reveal a few tidbits, but I promise you this, once you read the book, you'll see how much the preview doesn't give away. In fact, I've actually had people get mad at me because they claim the preview isn't really what the book was about. I see their point, and I politely disagree. Everything in the "preview" of The Hidden Sun is in the book--it actually proves my point that some people feel the need to know everything about a book or movie before hand to judge if it is good or not.

In the end, I'm writing an open letter to the preview makers: Make the previews interesting without ruining the movie / TV show / book. Give your audience some credit.

For more on my book, The Hidden Sun, please visit www.thehiddensun.com. That page also has a link to my blog.

And thank you again to C.K. Bryant for allowing me the pleasure of participating in her blog.