Jon H Thompson
Jon H Thompson

I was classically trained as an actor at the North Carolina School of the Arts, earning a BFA in Acting. (Yes, there really is such a degree.)

I spent two decades working in TV, film and on stage, though like the vast majority of actors very little of what I participated in was of great note.

During those years I realized a few things.

For one, a great percentage of the scripts I was being handed bordered on what could be called "unactable". (That means "not very good".) Not that anyone sets out to deliberately create a terrible piece of "art" (or even simple entertainment). 

So I began to try my hand at writing my own scripts, mostly for stage to begin. And they weren't bad, for the most part. It allowed me to use the things I was taught as an actor to tell stories based primarily on dialogue. 

And it was working on a number of film and TV shows that I realized that descriptions had to be rather precise in order to communicate to the actor how something was supposed to be not only performed but also thought about by the one stuck with acting it out.

So I wrote some screenplays.

And I actually had a couple of them "optioned". Basically that means someone wants to maintain exclusive rights to actually make a movie of the script, if they happen to be able to raise the money for production. Unfortunately that production company decided to spend what cash they had throwing parties to try and raise more cash and... well, you see where this is going.

Also it struck me that in order for a script to be considered "completed", you have to rely on a whole lot of other people... actors, a director, designers, technicians, etc., all of whom will want to take what you've written and "make it their own".

So I decided to switch from "dramatic" writing to "narrative" fiction, since a novel can be considered completed the moment the last word hits the page. (Selling such things is a totally different issue.)

Since then, I have authored a total (so far) of 32 novels in various genre, including superhero stories, magic, supernatural, historical fiction, horror, scifi and even some erotica.

I'm currently working on my 33rd novel, the final volume of a quartet of fantasy stories about an anachronistic world where 17th century technology clashes with Medieval culture on the verge of a civil war.

I hope readers will find some entertainment in my work, and based on the responses they have received, I have reason to believe I am succeeding.

So enjoy.  

Books

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A World Reborn: Chronicles of Paxia (The Chronicles of Paxia Book 4)

From the series: Chronicles of Paxia

Almost a century after the destruction of the invading Hoard, a new world is springing up in the Kingdom of Paxia, bourn on the back of the incredible new technologies provided by the eastern refugees who fled their own destroyed land on the opposite side of the great continent.

But curiosity and a longing for a new life and new possibilities...

A World Unknown: Chronicles of Paxia (The Chronicles of Paxia Book 3)

Book #3 from the series: Chronicles of Paxia

The world is changing. The time of kings is ending and the rule of the people is struggling to be born.

But there are threats rising from the south, as mad King Kullus strives to fulfill a murky prophecy of conquest, using magic and terror to wipe the Paxian lands clean and seize them for his own.

Only the knowledge and wonders brought by the...

The Chronicles of Paxia: A World Beyond

The Chronicles of Paxia
Book #2 from the series: Chronicles of Paxia

A year after the brief but devastating war between the Paxian brothers the kingdom is on the verge of the most radical change in their history.

They will shake off the monarchy and attempt to hand power to the people themselves.

And even more changes are approaching rapidly. William, the refuge from the other side of the continent is planning an...

Blog

I’ve finally published the fourth volume of my “epic fantasy trilogy” about the land of Paxia, which is now available in either Kindle or paperback editions.

Wait. The fourth of a trilogy? Huh?

Actually the saga was originally intended to be a single volume, but as sometimes happens I once again found myself realizing halfway through the initial story that there was considerably more to explore than I’d anticipated before I started.

In the case of this latest series, “The Chronicles of Paxia”...

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Everyone knows that George Lucas lifted what turned out to be “Chapter Four: A New Hope” directly from the structure of classic myth as outlined by academic Joseph Campbell in his book “Hero With A Thousand Faces”.

And he already had the base concept of the hero’s fight against the evil Empire more or less fixed. So he applied the hero structure to it to create what he initially assumed would be a “one off” single film, originally titled “Star Wars”.

But when it grabbed a universal appeal and...

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More often than not a story can survive having a lousy ending than a lousy beginning. If your story begins awkwardly or doesn’t have something to “hook” the reader/viewer, they never become engaged in either the basic concept, or the characters or the imagery that they first see when it opens. The result of that is they get bored and switch off, dismissing the story as uninteresting enough to pursue.

And there are many cases, in this age of sequels, where multiple stories form a single “saga”...

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