Behind the Scenes: The Long Journey of Guilty Deceptions

 

I first had the idea for Guilty Deceptions way back around 2012 or 2013 when I had read about an old case from the 1800s, that piqued my interest. In the beginning, I had aimed for a tell all book about the case from point A to point B. straight forward, with no fiction at all. I found that version rather boring and dull. Something was also eating at me, it was a simple question in my mind: How back then, did they know for sure they even got this case right?

With that idea in mind, I had started crafting early versions of Guilty deceptions, which had at one time been called: The Murder in Willow Grove, and Beneath the Shrubs. Either of those titles worked for me, and I also realized I needed a protagonist that would be remembered and well liked, with a few flaws. 

That's when I came up with the concept of Sheriff Dawson, who is completely fictional unlike other characters in the novel who were based on actual people who had been involved in the case. Sheriff Dawson, I had completely invented and placed him within the world of this story. 

As a newbie though, I thought in 2021, that my manuscript was finally ready to publish. I did not send the entire manuscript to beta readers to look at an provide feedback nor did I do any promo at all and just published the novel. 

By about 2023 or 2024, after again rushing the release of Dark Jealousy. Things weren't moving forward with the books at all. I sent Guilty Deceptions to a local publisher, who looked at it and provided feedback to what I needed to fix to have a successful book. It wasn't a lot of changes, and my core plot was interesting enough. 

I needed to work on some areas of the book, so I ended up pulling both Guilty Deceptions and Dark Jealousy off of Amazon, and began my drastic changes. Due to a very serious family matter in 2025, I had to halt my work on Guilty Deceptions for a couple of months because I could not focus on my writing. 

In the spring of this year, I started looking at the manuscript again, and started the project from scratch with the previous draft as my guide. I am making some drastic changes to structure and tone. Because this is a Victorian mystery, that needed better pacing, these changes have added whole chapters, I re-arranged scenes, and made minor changes to the plot which doesn't change the core plot at all, but helped with the story. 

I also added more characters which was necessary to help the mystery aspect of the story, and expanded some character's giving them more of a position within the story. I also have added tidbits of local history and events that happened around or had occurred before the events of this book. 

Sheriff Dawson's backstory: When I wrote Guilty Deceptions initially, I had intended for it to be a standalone book, but in truth, when I was finished with the book, I had put so much into him that I didn't want to let him go. I used him as the main protagonist in Dark Jealousy, and was in the process of writing a prequel to the now series I had been planning out. During my rewrite, I had decided instead of a full novel, the prequel will be a short novella to be released a few months before Guilty Deceptions. 

Before the Deception will be out sometime this summer. Yet, because I had written this after Guilty Deceptions there was barely any back story for Sheriff Dawson in Book One. So, since I was rewriting the book anyhow, I had expanded his backstory to coincide with  the events of Before the Deception. 

While I am still in the process of finishing Guilty Deceptions, I will be sending the book to some beta readers I had previously selected as soon as I feel the manuscript is finished. I will probably recruit these same beta readers as arc readers as well, and will probably add a few more for the advanced copies prior to release. 

In the meantime, Before the Deception is already in the hands of Beta readers, and hopefully I will have their feedback soon, so I can make the necessary changes to that before release. 

The other thing about the original version of the book that I didn't like, was the cover. I have a very low budget starting out, and so I edit and do art work all myself. But my covers just weren't what I wanted and did not look professional at all. I looked into premade covers, but none of them matched my vision for this series nor did they fit in with what Victorian mysteries should look like, but either did my previous covers. How did I fix that?

Well, I did a lot of research as to what elements scream a Victorian mystery, and found out what I needed. I also took a few graphic design courses, and learned how to do things more professional with that. I love my new covers, and I can only hope you all will too. 

I still have a long way to go with Guilty Deceptions, and there is many months of work still left to do. I have to still:

• Finish the Manuscript
• Edit
• Send to Beta Readers
• Make last tweaks
• Edit the final time
• Format for Kindle and Paperback

Now, here's where I must be honest with you all about. I'm not sure where Guilty Deceptions will find its home as of yet. Before the Deception will for sure be published to Amazon this summer. Yet for Guilty Deceptions its a toss up right now between Amazon and my local publisher whom I was speaking with this morning, and I will be touching base with them again prior to my Amazon decision. I will keep everyone updated on the progress of these two projects and their future when it comes to publishing. 

Though I can't reveal the cover for Guilty Deceptions this early, I will show you the cover for Before the Deception which I made myself. 

Yours in the shadows,

D.C. Malcolm