As long as I can remember, I’ve loved hearing people talk. Whether it’s in the form of a movie, a radio program or a conversation overheard on a train, I’ve always been fascinated with the way people use words to communicate with one another. I wasn’t very talkative as a kid and that may have been because I was too busy listening.
As I got older, I started making up for lost time by talking up a storm. When reading aloud in English class, I would drastically change my tone throughout a sentence just to get a chuckle from those paying attention. I would devise clever games (at least, I thought they were clever) of wordplay with classmates and friends. I started having long, drawn-out conversations with my crushes over the phone, some of which would last over two hours (the conversations, not the crushes).
It was this love of dialogue that made me want to become a writer. The years of listening which were followed by years of chatting acted like two distinct sides of a conversation. I channeled this love of dialogue into years of theatre and improvised comedy, taking part in hundreds of scenes both scripted and unscripted. Recently, after years of writing about the art of writing itself, I sat down to write my first fiction book, a novella called Ted Saves the World.
Although I am a hopeless romantic, I’ve grown tired of tragic love stories full of cliché dialogue and characters whining. I wrote Ted Saves the World to tell an entertaining adventure story in which the characters literally have a good time joking back and forth with each other. I truly believe that if the author has had a fun time writing a book, it will translate into a good time for those reading it.
I had a wonderfully amusing time writing the book and I hope you enjoy it enough to share a dialogue with all your friends.
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Description of Ted Saves the World (Available for just $0.99):
A possessed cheerleader. A cursed gang of criminals. Mysterious telekinetic powers. An angry ex-girlfriend in gym class? One second, sophomore in high school Ted endures his first breakup in his favorite place in town. The next, a mysterious blue light turns him into a worldwide superhero sensation for taking down a posse of grisly murderers. As his views on YouTube increase and his friend Dhiraj tries to capitalize on the marketing potential, his dangers increase as well when a presumed-dead cheerleader begins taking a personal interest. Can Ted survive his first week as a superhero in the public eye? This novella is the first taste in a series of full-length novels about the adventures of Ted Finley and Erica LaPlante. The book is also available on Barnes & Noble and Smashwords for $0.99.
Giveaway:
Bryan Cohen is giving away four $25 Amazon gift cards, one for each week of his month long blog tour. To enter, simply comment with your e-mail address (feel free to substitute @ with (at) or other tricks to stop spammers from getting it). Bryan will draw the four names at the end of the tour, picking one entrant at random from each week’s set of blog posts. Entries will be counted through Monday, August 15th, 2011. Enter on as many sites as you want, follow the tour at Build Creative Writing Ideas. If Ted reaches the Top 100 on Amazon at any point during the tour, a fifth $25 card will be added to the giveaway.
Biography:
Bryan Cohen is a writer, actor and comedian from Dresher, Pennsylvania. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2005 with degrees in English and Dramatic Art and a minor in Creative Writing. He has written seven books including 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts: Ideas for Blogs, Scripts, Stories and More. Contact Bryan through his Ted Saves the World blog, his Build Creative Writing Ideas site or Twitter.
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