Virtual Book Tour Stop #2 - Author Melody Dempsey

Melody Dempsey is the author of The Forest Portal. She is married with two children, and has, as she calls them "5 furry babies". She has always loved writing as far back as she can remember, writing more seriously around the age of 14. Melody claims her very vivid imagination is where she draws her inspiration for her writing, and quite the imagination she does have.

Please be sure to follow Melody throughout her Virtual Book Tour, and leave a comment at her stops to be entered into a drawing to win a signed copy of her book! All tours can be seen at BK Walker Books with links to each destination and the author who will be appearing.


Thank you Melody for taking time to chat with us today. I am so excited to have you with us.


BK: What is needed for a story to be good?

MD: A good story needs Dramatic plots. This keeps the reader interested and it makes the story a page turner.

It is very important to keep verisimilitude realms with the characters involved. In real life, no one is perfect, so characters in a book should not be either. I feel that people can relate to a character with faults. In my opinion, reading about a “perfect person” is annoying and most certainly, boring.

I feel that chemistry between the characters can make or break a book, whether that chemistry is has to do with tension, sexual or otherwise. It really does not matter if the characters get along or not, as long as the chemistry is there where they are able to work off of each other.

Connecting with the reading audience is key to the success of a Novel. It's important to make the characters human; breathe life into them. I feel that this is one of the most important key ingredients in helping your reading audience to see the characters, feel what they feel and root for them. It's important for an Author to care for his or her characters; to care what happens between these characters. This, in turn, will help the reader care as well. I feel that if the audience connects with the characters and feels what is happening to them, then they are going to find it hard to put the book down and after they do complete it, they will not forget their reading experience and tell others about the book.

BK: Till now how many books have you written?

MD: I have one Novel published at this time. I do want to write a sequel to The Forest Portal as soon as I can.

BK: How much time do you take to finish a book?

MD: It took me two years to actually write the entire book.

My book was not actually planned. I just sat down one day when I had some spare time and started to write. The more I wrote on the story, the more excited I felt about continuing with it. I worked in my spare time until I got the rough draft completed. I then started turning the rough draft into a manuscript. This took quite some time, as I revised my book several times before I felt it was ready for publication.

BK: Where do you get ideas for your writing?

MD: Most of my ideas for writing The Forest Portal came from mystery novels, time traveling/fantasy films, and suspense novels and films, not to mention my very vivid imagination! lol!

BK: Tell about your first book?

MD: The Forest Portal tells of the story of three teens who find themselves with the ability to travel back and fourth through time at will. Cameron Maine, the oldest of the teens, inadvertently creates a sealant that was meant to turn old wood new again, but his invention fails. His sister Collette, along with their friend Taden, decide to try and cheer him up by going into the small wooded area behind the Maine's house to paint some trees. They find two ordinary trees, paint the sealant on them and soon find out that the trees have become a time portal. They discover that after painting these two trees with the sealant, that the liquid was the reason the trees turned into a time portal. The three teens, because they cannot seem to resist the temptation to keep from going back and fourth through time, they inadvertently create chaos in their own lives as well as those they touch in the past, all the while, keeping their secret from their own families and from the people they meet in the past.




BK: What is the hardest part of writing?

MD: I feel that discipline is very important when writing a book. You have to care about what you are writing. I found that the hardest thing for me was trying to keep from getting distracted from continuing with my writing. With The Forest Portal, I did not have a hard time getting started; it was finding the time to continue with my writing. I set time aside to write, but there were times when that time had to be used for something else. I would set another time aside and I would use that time wisely. There were other times that I set aside to continue with my book and I would get writers block. It did not happen very often, so when I did suffer with these blocks, I left the computer, did something else, then I came back, read a few paragraphs, sometimes it was a few pages and I found I was able to “unlock that block” so to speak and I was able to continue with my book.

You can learn more about Melody Dempsey by visiting her blog at Melody Dempsey Blogspot

Purchase The Forest Portal at Amazon